British couple who died on holiday in Egypt may have been exposed to a second toxic chemical banned in the UK when hotel room next door was fumigated for bed bugs, inquest hears

• John and Susan Cooper died of carbon monoxide poisoning on holiday in Egypt 

A couple who died on holiday in Egypt may have been exposed to a second toxic chemical banned in the UK when the hotel room next door was fumigated, an inquest heard.

John Cooper, 69, and his wife Susan, 63, died from carbon monoxide poisoning while staying at their five-star all inclusive resort in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada in August 2018, a Home Office pathologist found.

The first day of an inquest, which opened on Tuesday, was told the room next door had been sprayed with the pesticide Lambda to treat bed bugs the day before their deaths. Inhalation of the chemical can be fatal.

But today, Coroner James Adeley heard the Lambda may have been mixed with a toxic solvent, dichloromethane (DCM), also fatal if inhaled and which produces carbon monoxide when broken down by the body.

DCM was banned except for in a small number of highly-regulated industrial settings by Britain and the European Union in 2012.

John Cooper, 69, and his wife Susan, 63, died from carbon monoxide poisoning while staying at their five-star all inclusive resort in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada in August 2018

The couple died  during a stay at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic hotel, a five-star resort in the egyptian Red Sea town of Hurghada

The US Environmental Protection Agency is due to ban the substance next year.

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Mr Adeley, sitting at Blackburn Coroner’s Court, heard evidence from toxicologist Prof Robert Chilcott, who said carbon monoxide can be produced ‘if a pesticide is mixed with a particular solvent, dichloromethane’.

Prof Chilcott added: ‘I know it’s commonly used in less-developed countries. DCM acts to produce a vapour.’

He said the concoction can produce high levels of carbon monoxide within the body after exposure.

The expert witness continued: ‘There are exposure limits of 100 parts per million but if you were to spray a room with furniture and a mattress, I suspect it would exceed (that level) quite quickly’.

The inquest heard the neighbouring room at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic hotel had been sealed with tape around the main door to the corridor – but noxious gas could have seeped under another interconnecting door into the Coopers’ room.

The Coopers, from Burnley, Lancashire, noticed a smell when they returned briefly before going to dinner on the evening of August 20 and Mrs Cooper, a Thomas Cook travel agent, sprayed perfume to disguise it.

Mrs Cooper returned with her granddaughter Molly Omerod, then 12, who was staying with them, and went to bed before midnight. Her builder husband returned soon after.

The couple remained in their room – apart from Mr Cooper leaving briefly to take their granddaughter Molly, then 12 and who had been staying with them, to her mother’s room after she complained of feeling sick at around 1am.

John and Susan Cooper (pictured) died after falling ill at a Red Sea resort in Egypt on August 21, 2018

The couple’s daughter Kelly Ormerod (centre), with her daughters Molly (left) and Jess (right) outside Blackburn Town Hall on Tuesday

Molly Omerod, now 18, said in her evidence on Tuesday that the room had a strange ‘yeasty’ smell – and Prof Chilcott said DCM is known to produce a smell that is ‘mild, sweet and agreeable’.

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Mr and Mrs Cooper were found by their daughter Kelly Omerod, who came to check on them the next morning.

She recalled her father stumbling ‘as though he’d had 10 pints of beer’ and her mother lying on her bed ‘moaning’.

Mr Cooper was pronounced dead in the room at lunchtime, while his wife died in hospital in the afternoon, after what their family described as a confused medical response at the hotel.

Two doctors were sent to the couple’s room, who ‘didn’t have a clue what they were doing’ and did not call an ambulance for several hours.

Home Office pathologist Dr Charles Wilson concluded the couple both died from carbon monoxide poisoning – detected using fresh blood samples taken from their heads during post-mortem examinations in Britain.

Dr Wilson added Mr Cooper’s death was contributed to by previously-unknown ischemic heart disease, but that it was unlikely to have been fatal on its own and he had shown no signs of ill-health.

Initial Egyptian autopsies had not identified carbon monoxide. They found Mr Cooper died from heart failure and his wife from a ‘broken heart’ plus heart disease of her own – conclusions dismissed by Dr Wilson.

Dr Wilson said arteries within Mrs Cooper’s heart were only hardened to 40 per cent and said that would not have contributed to her death.

He added: ‘We have to look at the context – his wife was coincidentally ill in the same room, she didn’t have heart disease, and the situation with the granddaughter who left the room because she didn’t like the smell, then got better.

‘That set of circumstances is indicative of something in the environment.’

Asked to comment on the lack of medical attention given to Mrs Cooper at first – who only briefly received oxygen as she was brought from her hotel room and not in the ambulance – he said ‘it would have been a good idea’ to provide it sooner but could not comment further.

Dr Wilson also revealed Egyptian officials had retained some of the couple’s organs and partially-embalmed their bodies, hindering the second autopsies.

Dr Nick Gent, a senior adviser to the UK Health Security Agency on chemical and biological substances, told the inquest it was ‘highly unlikely’ the Coopers could have been struck down with identical symptoms of extreme drowsiness and vomiting at the same time from an illness.

Dr Gent said Prof Chilcott’s suggestion the carbon monoxide poisoning was the result of DCM was ‘a possible mechanism’ but that he could not be certain.

He added: ‘I would feel on the balance of probabilities we are talking about a toxic chemical exposure as being the cause of death.’

Charlotte Law, KC, representing the family, asked Dr Gent whether Mrs Cooper could have survived had she received oxygen sooner but he said it was ‘away from my expertise’.

The inquest heard the hotel’s kitchens and boiler house were some distance away, the carbon monoxide could not have come through the air conditioning and there were no plausible sources within the Coopers’ room.

Mr Adeley said of the efforts to work out the origin of the carbon monoxide: ‘We’re down to Sherlock Holmes. Once one excludes everything else, what you have left is the truth.’

He adjourned the inquest and will give his conclusion on Friday.

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