Nerve agent victim’s survival chance described as “vanishingly small” at inquiry

An inquiry has been informed that a poisoning victim, Dawn Sturgess, who inadvertently sprayed herself with Novichok, possessed a “vanishingly small” prospect of survival. Ms. Sturgess, aged 44, passed away on 8 July 2018, slightly more than a week after her exposure to the nerve agent at her residence in Amesbury, Wiltshire. During his testimony at the London inquiry concerning her death, Dr. Jasmeet Soar, a consultant specializing in intensive care medicine at Bristol’s Southmead Hospital, stated that Ms. Sturgess experienced a cardiac-respiratory arrest. She did not receive CPR for nearly 10 minutes thereafter, and it was determined that her ultimate cause of death was a traumatic brain injury resulting from insufficient oxygen and blood flow. Her demise occurred after the attempted murders of former spy Sergei Skripal, his daughter Yulia, and then-police officer Nick Bailey, all of whom were poisoned in Salisbury, a nearby location, in March 2018. All three individuals survived, as did Charlie Rowley, Ms. Sturgess’s boyfriend, who had inadvertently provided her with the bottle containing the lethal nerve agent. Dr. Soar informed the inquiry that Novichok’s effects, if not addressed “rapidly,” can result in a “vicious circle of the muscles getting weaker,” encompassing those essential for respiration. He further stated that Mr. Rowley discovered his girlfriend in the bath without water and characterized her condition as “unresponsive, looking unwell and having seizures or breathing difficulty,” and that he had reviewed the ambulance call placed by Mr. Rowley approximately at 10:14 BST on 30 June 2018. “In the background of the call while he’s talking you can hear quite noisy breathing and that then gets gradually slower and slower to the point it stops at about 10.20am,” Dr. Soar recounted. He conveyed to the panel his belief that Ms. Sturgess was experiencing cardiac arrest by this point, noting that Mr. Rowley had performed some chest compressions, but “but we don’t know how many and how effective they were”. Dr. Soar additionally clarified that Ms. Sturgess was likely exposed to a comparatively substantial dose of Novichok relative to Mr. Rowley and the Skripals, having applied the perfume to her wrists. He further indicated that she probably inhaled aerosol components of the agent. The inquiry remains ongoing.