Friend of novichok victims fears they picked up contaminated item

The couple exposed to the same nerve agent used to target a Russian spy and his daughter could have come into contact with novichok via a contaminated syringe.

Dawn Sturgess, 44, and her partner Charlie Rowley, 45, are fighting for life after they were exposed to the deadly substance in Amesbury just 300 yards from the site at which Sergei Skripal and his daughter fell ill in March.

A friend of Ms Sturgess has revealed the latest pair to be exposed were feeling ill after touching an item in Salisbury’s Queen Elizabeth Gardens on Saturday.

Officers surrounded the entire green with police tape, including a children’s play park and public toilets 

Mr Rowley was lying on his back in a stretcher as the paramedic in a white protective suit pushed it inside as two police officers watched on

Police were pictured at the park in Wiltshire before the agent was today identified as novichok. 

Today a man known only as ‘Jack’ appeared on Sky News with a hoodie concealing his identity to reveal police has warned heroin users like him to be wary of syringes in the wake of the attack four months ago.

‘Jack’ told reporters that heroin users like him were warned about syringes following the attack on the Skripals in March

Police corned off Queen Elizabeth Gardens in Salisbury but it was not clear why as they were not near Ms Sturgess’ home

But he said Ms Sturgess was not a heroin user after it was revealed she and her partner ‘went into a zombie-like state’ and ‘slumped against the wall’ after they were exposed.

It is thought the couple could have come across the container or syringe used to carry novichok in the attack on the Skripals. 

‘I myself am a user,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t use which is strange for her to, you know, kind of be in the position she’s in.’ 

Initially police believed the pair had come into contact with a contaminated batch of Class A drugs.

A friend who says he called an ambulance for one of the victims told MailOnline of the desperate state he was in.

Sam Hobson, 29, said: ‘Charlie was dribbling and was rocking backwards and forwards. He was in another world, he was hallucinating.

Sam Hobson said Charlie Rowley was ‘dribbling, rocking and hallucinating’ after they were exposed 

‘He wasn’t high or anything. He was stone cold sober. It was like nothing I’d ever seen. I called the ambulance and they took him away.’ 

Mr Hobson had seen the couple the evening before they fell ill and went to see them again at about 11am the next day.

He found that Ms Sturgess had already been taken away in an ambulance which Mr Rowley had called earlier that morning.

‘I went with Charlie over to Boots to pick up his prescription and then we came back to his flat,’ he said. ‘He had a shower and then he just started having all these symptoms. It was really terrifying.

He said: ‘The police contacted me and asked to interview me at Amesbury station. They said both Dawn and Charlie are not conscious or responding and are in a bad way.

‘They didn’t mention novichok or the Russians.’  

A neighbour who lives in the same block of flats as the couple described how he saw each of them being stretchered from their flat into waiting ambulances.

The man in his 30s, who did not want to be named, said they were ‘lovely people’.

Speaking through the window of his ground floor flat, which is inside the police cordon in Muggleton Road, he said: ‘It was about 10.30am on Saturday, when I saw Dawn being taken out on a stretcher.

‘Then later that evening, Charlie was also taken out and put into an ambulance. There were lots of emergency vehicles about and we were all told to stay in our homes.

‘Charlie and Dawn haven’t been living at the flat long at all, and I’ve only met them a coupe of times but they seem like lovely people. They seem decent.’  

 

 

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk