Amanda Worne, 47, said ‘armageddon’ broke out as police and the emergency services responded to the incident
A woman who sat next to one of two people who fell ill prompting a Novichok scare at a Salisbury restaurant has said that police told her the two victims were Russian.
Amanda Worne, 47, from Yapton, near Arundel, West Sussex, said that ‘armageddon’ broke out as police and the emergency services responded to the incident at the Prezzo restaurant in Salisbury yesterday.
Mrs Worne, who uses a wheelchair after being paralysed in a cycling accident, said that she had gone to the restaurant with a friend after finishing a flying lesson and had asked the woman, who she described as a ‘beautiful blonde’, if she could sit next to her on a sofa in the restaurant.
She said: ‘She was really over polite, she said ‘It would be honour and it would be privilege to have you sit with me on the sofa’, and she helped me move the table.’
Mrs Worne added: ‘The girl, she looked slightly dishevelled, there was something about her, she wasn’t comfortable, she wasn’t relaxed, she had a large glass of wine next to her and my friend and I thought she might have been on an afternoon session.’
She added: ‘She was really peculiar, she was stunning but her skirt was a bit skew-whiff, she was a bit stumbling, she didn’t look right.’
She continued: ‘She kept getting up and down and acting a little unusual, she went up to the toilet and came down hysterical ‘Oh my God, we need an ambulance, we need an ambulance, someone help we need an ambulance’.’
Mrs Worne said the paramedics arrived quickly and after seeing the couple rushed out and returned with protective clothing.
She said: ‘The paramedic, he was grey, the perspiration, you could see he was so apprehensive, he said ‘Just get out’.’
Mrs Worne said she called 999 to ask where the police were and they arrived shortly afterwards and she added: ‘The next thing it was all carnage, it was armageddon, there were sirens, ambulances.’
She added: ‘For us personally it was very, very frightening, we were told by a police officer there were two Russians showing symptoms of the Novichok virus and we would probably have to go to hospital for blood tests.’
Mrs Worne added that she was later given the all-clear. She said that she could not tell the woman’s nationality from her accent.