UK Medics Used Anti-Nerve Agent Drug For 1st Time To Save Amesbury Attack Victim - Reports

UK paramedics saved the life of Charlie Rowley, who is believed to have been exposed to the chemical attack in Amesbury last summer, by administering an anti-nerve agent drug that had not been used on a patient in the country until then, The Guardian reported on Monday, citing the emergency services that had been called by the victims

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 08th July, 2019) UK paramedics saved the life of Charlie Rowley, who is believed to have been exposed to the chemical attack in Amesbury last summer, by administering an anti-nerve agent drug that had not been used on a patient in the country until then, The Guardian reported on Monday, citing the emergency services that had been called by the victims.

In July 2018, the UK police reported that a couple was poisoned in the city of Amesbury. Shortly thereafter, the police announced that Rowley and his partner, Dawn Sturgess, were believed to have handled a bottle of perfume supposedly containing the same military-grade nerve agent which was allegedly used in the March 2018 attack on the Skripals, which London had blamed on Russia without providing any evidence. Sturgess died in hospital on July 8, while Rowley was discharged from hospital on July 20.

According to the newspaper, one of the paramedics who had helped former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter when they were poisoned in Salisbury was by chance a part of the team which went to the aid of the Amesbury attack victims.

According to the South Western Ambulance Service NHS foundation trust (SWASFT), cited by the newspaper, at first the paramedics had no suspicion that the Amesbury incident could have been a second nerve agent poisoning. Yet, when the ambulance was called to the house of the couple for the second time a day, pure instinct told the paramedic, who had been previously among those responding to the Salisbury poisoning, to give Rowley an anti-nerve agent drug.

It was reportedly the first time when the drug, which UK crews started carrying with them on the onset of the al-Qaeda (terrorist group, outlawed in Russia) global threat, was administered to a patient.

SWASFT also said that its staff had complained about headaches, sore throats and eye problems after contacting the Amesbury victims, noting that there were also concerns over possible long-term effects on their health.