THE hotel room where a British couple died in Egypt was next door to one that had been fumigated with strong chemicals just hours before.
John and Susan Cooper died after reportedly falling ill from E.coli poisoning while sleeping in their hotel room.
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Mr Cooper, 69, died in the couple’s hotel room, while Mrs Cooper, 64, died just hours later in hospital.
An inquest has found that the room next door to them had been fumigated with chemicals to kill bed bugs just hours before the tragic incident.
An expert has now suggested the couple may have died not from food or carbon monoxide poisoning, but possible exposure to an “infectious biological agent or toxic chemicals”.
The couple, from Burnley, Lancashire, died in August 2018 at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic Hotel in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada.
They were reportedly on the “holiday of a lifetime” with family as their daughter Kelly Ormerod described them as “fit and healthy” before their deaths.
Mr Cooper owned a building firm in Burnley while Mrs Cooper was a long-serving staff member at a branch of Thomas Cook
In 2018 Egypt’s chief prosecutor found the husband suffered acute intestinal dysentery caused by E.coli, and his wife suffered a complication linked to infection, also likely to have been caused by E.coli.
But Ormerod, 40, insisted that a bad smell in the room pointed to something else being responsible for their deaths.
She said 12-year-old daughter Molly, who was sleeping with her grandparents the night before they died, had a lucky escape.
And the mum-of-three’s view was backed up by a renowned expert on the infection.
On August 20 the Coopers and their family went to the hotel restaurant and bar before heading back to their rooms for the evening.
Molly said the room had a “yeasty smell” and at 1am Mr Cooper rang Ormerod to say she was feeling a little unwell before he took his granddaughter to her mother’s room.
A German tourist staying in the room next to the Coopers’ has now revealed that a bed bug infestation was treated with pesticide at lunchtime, before the couple fell ill in the early hours.
The two rooms had an adjoining door, but this was kept locked, Blackburn Coroner’s Court heard.
When the pair failed to turn up for breakfast the next day, their daughter went to check on them and found them seriously ill.
She said they were both throwing up and she noticed a strange “heavy” smell.
The two doctors who attended the scene were in “panic mode”, according to Ormerod, as CPR was attempted unsuccessfully on her dad.
Tearfully she told the inquest: “His eyes kind of… a glazed, staring look.”
He was declared dead as his wife was taken to a clinic at the hotel where she became “super agitated” and delirious, the inquest heard.
Mrs Cooper was then taken to hospital by ambulance but declared dead that afternoon.
Both were returned to the UK in sealed, zinc-lined coffins, the inquest heard.
A statement was read from Dominik Bibi, the tourist whose mother-in-law stayed next door to the Coopers at the hotel.
He said: “On entering I immediately noticed a funny smell, like that of mould or damp.
“There was a lot of bed bugs in the bed and under it.”
He recalled that a cleaner and night manager came and apologised as his mother-in-law took his and his wife’s room, further down the corridor.
Hours later he saw three men, two wearing the hotel uniform and the other with a two or three litre pesticide canister he assumed was being used to get rid of the bed bugs.
After five or 10 minutes they left and used masking tape around the door to seal the room.
“I would not say the job was very professional,” his statement continued.
He added that the air conditioning in the hotel was not working tht day and a cleaner had told the family it was being looked at.
He also revealed that he himself and other members of his family were unwell.
The hearing was adjourned until Wednesday morning.
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