A young man has had 50% of his stomach removed after drinking ‘adulterated beer’ during a night out in Lisbon.
The 21-year-old is still in Barreiro Hospital following emergency surgery.
A 20-year-old companion was also injured during the horror, but ‘managed to spit the beer out before swallowing it’.
He escaped with burns to his throat and oesophagus and has since been discharged from hospital.
The horrific incident could have killed both youngsters, affirms national tabloid Correio da Manhã. It only didn’t because of the quick thinking of others, who called emergency services instantly.
The young men had been ‘out on the town’ in the popular riverside district of Cais de Sodré and were making their way home on the Transtejo ferry.
It was on the boat, bound for Montijo, that the youngsters are believed to have drunk the poisoned beer – thought to have been adulterated with something like caustic soda.
As CM explains, “a few years ago, caustic soda was used to wash out beer bottles”. Thus, the poisoning may have been accidental.
For now, laboratory tests are ongoing as PJ police are still not certain what kind of substance was used.
Rescue services were called to the docks in Seixalinho in the early hours of Wednesday morning, to find the two young men in “great suffering”.
They were both rushed to hospital where the most seriously injured underwent emergency surgery to remove 50% of his stomach.
His oesophagus and “other digestive organs” have been affected, writes CM – but although the young man is in a serious condition, his life is not in danger.
CM adds that the laboratory tests are being performed on ‘the most serious tissue’ taken from the youngster’s stomach as this may well be the best way of discovering the identity of the rogue substance.
