Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Overdose fear kept cordons shut – halting toxin’s spread
APILE of vomit from the collapsed Russian former spy Sergei Skripal stopped a police officer allowing the lifting of the cordon at the scene and potentially sending the city into further panic, it has emerged.
Sgt Tracey Holloway spotted the sick at Mr Skripal’s foot near the park bench outside the Maltings shopping centre following a medical call at 4.15pm on the Sunday afternoon of March 4 last year.
At the time it was believed the 67-year-old had suffered a drug overdose along with his 33-year-old daughter, Yulia.
Having attended a police training course on the dangers of the highly potent synthetic opioid fentanyl and its potential to spread, Sgt Holloway made the call to keep the cordon up for a clean-up.
If it had not been for spotting the vomit on the floor, the officer said the area could have been open to the public again by 7pm, risking further infection from the true cause of the pair’s collapse, the nerve agent Novichok.
Speaking to the Western Daily Press, she said: “Quite early on the word fentanyl was mentioned. There was no evidence to suggest it was fentanyl at the time, but I had recently been to an officer safety training course and that was mentioned.
“So I called the control room and said, ‘If it is fentanyl, how do we look after ourselves now, and also this pile of vomit which is now here, I need to do something with that, I’m not happy just to leave it here. Fentanyl is highly contagious, and if it is this, I don’t want to leave that there’.
“We would have lifted the scene by about 7pm and gone hours before – and then we would have had to go back in and put it down again.
“We could have had a situation where people would have walked through it and spread it around further than it was.
“That’s why we do training days.” On the day, Sgt Holloway had started her shift at 3pm, carried out her briefing to the team before the call came in about two people who had collapsed on the bench at the Maltings. She attended the scene where she found PC Alex Collins and an off-duty doctor were attending to Yulia, who was unconscious. Mr Skripal was in a “trance”, said Sgt Holloway, and was being checked over by PC Alex Way and a member of the public.
A cordon was put up for the Skripals’ dignity and the early signs were that the cause of the pair’s condition was a drug overdose.
Sgt Holloway said: “After a short time and speaking to paramedics, we thought it might be some kind of drug overdose, although they didn’t look like the type of people who take drugs, not that there is a type.
“Their clothing was a bit too smart.”
The officers found Mr Skripal’s wallet and ID before putting calls in to work out the relationship between the two – but it wasn’t until they got back to the station, with the patients sent to Salisbury District Hospital, that the significance of what happened came to light.
Sgt Holloway said: “We found out his name [Mr Skripal] within a few minutes, but the link to him and what we now know was not until many hours later.
“We came back to the station, spoke to the on-duty inspector. One
of the CID officers said, ‘Do you have pictures?’ She did a search on the male name and saw the now-famous picture of him behind bars.
“I was like, ‘Oh, this kind of changes things now’. We went from there really.”
Still unaware of the true cause of the pair’s sudden illness, and its danger, Sgt Holloway finished an 18-hour shift at 3pm the following day. After two hours’ sleep she checked social media and saw Salisbury District Hospital’s A&E, the Bishop’s Mill pub at the Maltings and Zizzi in the centre had all closed.
When she came into the station the following day, both she and her team were all asked to hand over their clothing and equipment.
Yet it was not until Thursday, four days after her call-out to the incident, did she find out the nerve agent Novichok was the probably cause of the pair’s illness.
A narrative was given that the agent had been sprayed on the front door to the home of Mr Skripal in Christie Miller Road. The pair left their home at 1.30pm and arrived at the Maltings car park at 1.40pm.
Sgt Holloway thought back and realised she had touched the pair. She said: “I touched him and her. “But because we knew they parked their car in the afternoon, we knew they were ill relatively quickly after parking, a couple of hours. Because we were all fit and well the next day I wasn’t concerned about my health, and I didn’t know Nick was ill.
“I’ve never had any checks.”
By now the situation had escalated, with almost 200 personnel from the army in the city centre, including military experts in chemical warfare and decontamination.
Officers from neighbouring police forces also joined the efforts.
Sgt Holloway said: “It was stressful at work, purely because of the amount of welfare and calls.
“With regards to being out and about in the community, it was phenomenal – the fact people were handing over ice creams and Easter eggs was incredible
“Members of the public were coming to us and saying, ‘Thank you for what you are doing’. You don’t expect that. Everyone was amazed at the support from the public.”
On the future, Sgt Holloway hopes the city “gets back to normal”, adding: “People want to get on with things, get Salisbury back to normal, see a boost to the economy.
“The businesses are feeling it with the footfall being lower.
“We all want to see Salisbury in a positive light again – I’m sure no one will ever forget the height of the spire being 123 metres, that’s for sure.”
People want to get on with things, get back to normal, see a boost to
the economy SGT TRACEY HOLLOWAY