JEDDAH, 28 October 2008 — A Filipino woman died and a relative is fighting for her life in what doctors at a hospital in Jeddah said was a case of pesticide suffocation.
Philippine Consulate officials identified the fatality as Kalsun Handi, a 36-year-old mother of two from Siraway town of Zamboanga del Norte province in the southern Philippines.
Still under observation at the intensive care unit of the King Fahd Hospital was Sarkia Pondusan, 30 years old, a sister- in-law of Handi.
The two women were brought to the hospital on Friday morning after they complained of nausea, relatives and hospital workers said. Handi died at 2 p.m., hospital records showed.
Nurses at the hospital’s ICU said the victims were found to have inhaled toxic levels of aluminum phosphate.
Jul-anni Saleh Entuman, husband of Handi, admitted that he sprayed an unnamed kind of pesticide against cockroaches and bedbugs in the corners of their apartment on Thursday night before leaving his wife and Pondusan to sleep in the house of a friend.
Early on Friday morning, he said he got a “missed call” from his wife and when he called back, he was told to hurry home.
He said that when he arrived home, he found his wife and sister-in-law slumped on the floor and vomiting.
Yurad, a friend of Entuman, said they submitted to doctors at King Fahd Hospital samples of the pesticide they bought from a trading company.
He said the bottle did not have any label. He described the pesticide as odorless and the container a round bottle, colored brown.
Vicky Salian, head of the consulate’s Assistance to Nationals Section, said she has sent representatives to provide the necessary assistance to the victims and their families.
Yurad said the tragedy should serve as a warning to others to be careful in using pesticides. In an interview yesterday, Entuman said he did leave the windows of their apartment open after spraying the unnamed pesticide.
