NOVICHOK IS KILLING ME I want the higher-ups who ordered the attack to suffer
I fear it’s blinding me..i don’t think I’ll be here in 10 years
NOVICHOK survivor Charlie Rowley fears he could be permanently blinded by the Russian nerve agent – and it will eventually kill him.
His eyesight has deteriorated since he opened a discarded bottle containing the deadly substance used to try to kill MI6 informant Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, Wilts.
In his first interview since leaving hospital, Charlie, 45, revealed how he was left blinded, spent days in a coma, suffered numerous strokes and now faces having a pacemaker.
And he told how the uncertainty has left him suicidal.
Charlie repeatedly broke down as he told the Sunday People: “I’m terrified about what the future now holds.
“The doctors simply don’t know what the long- term affects could be.
“The worst thing has been the fear over my eyesight. I’m struggling to see properly and to walk.
“I’m one of only four people in the world known to have survived novichok, so it’s untrodden territory.”
Charlie, whose girlfriend
Dawn Sturgess died after unwittingly spraying novichok from a fake perfume bottle he found in a charity bin in Salisbury, added: “I’m still worried it could kill me if I get any sort of virus again.
“I’m dreading getting a cold over the winter.
Strange
“When I got out of hospital the first time I was pleased .
But a few weeks later I was back – blind and unable to use my left arm.
“The doctors told me I’d suffered numerous strokes and I needed heart treatment and a pacemaker. I remember thinking ‘I’m 45 – this isn’t right’.
“Before that I could jog, run, now I can’t walk without being totally out of breath. I feel done in.”
Charlie still blames himself for 45-year-old Dawn’s death in July.
He said: “I remember saying to Dawn, ‘I’ve got something for you’ and I got the box of perfume.
“I hadn’t heard of the brand but she said it was a really good one.
“I sliced the packet open with a knife and inside was the perfume bottle with the dispenser separate, so I attached the bits together.
“As I did it, I got my hands covered in it. I sniffed it and I noticed it was almost odourless which I thought was strange.
“She sprayed it on her wrists and rubbed them together and it was oily on my hands so I washed it off with water and soap.
“Fifteen minutes later
Dawn started saying she had a headache and went to the bathroom.
“I found her convulsing in the bath and foaming at the mouth. She had got in still fully clothed. I’d never seen anything like it in my life. I called 999 immediate ately. I was screaming and trying to help her.
“I was saying to Dawn, ‘Please don’t do this, wake up, please don’t leave me’. ”
Charlie initially suffered no i ill-effects but hours later he a also fell ill.
Dawn died nine days later. C Charlie, who had suffered drug proble problems, and Dawn, a recovering alcoholic, had been together a year and expected to spend the rest of their lives with each other.
Charlie said: “I wished it had been me that died rather than Dawn, because I felt like I had killed her and I’ve got to live with that.
“I dream about her often – nightmares really – and I have flashbacks a lot. I think I’m suffering PTSD.”
Charlie also feels he has been ignored by the authorities – unlike the other novichok victims.
He said: “The Skripals have had the security services looking after them and have been given new homes and identities and Sgt Nick Bailey has had the support of the police as he falls under their umbrella and has been given a new home and new cars.
“But I’ve just been released from hospital and left to get on with it.” A five-month police investigation found that Russian military intelligence agents Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov carried out the original poisonings in March.
Charlie said: “I want them and the people higher up who ordered the poisoning to suffer for what they’ve done. I want justice for Dawn.”
He added: “I’ve been told I may get some compensation from the Criminal Injuries Authority, but that it could take 10 years.
“After everything that has happened I don’t think I’ll be alive in 10 years. It has been horrendous.”