How the goulash tried to kill me

At the end of October, several dozen tourists, mainly Russian, were poisoned at the hotel in the Egyptian city of Hurghada. The reason was called a violation of sanitary standards, the Prosecutor General of Egypt opened a criminal case. However, the tourists have not yet received any compensations. This happens very often. The author of Samizdat, Dalia Valeeva, recalls how she became a victim of mass poisoning by a gholysh in the Budapest restaurant, which was recommended in the program "Eagle and Tails". Atropine found in food, but the victims did not receive compensation, and the restaurant continued to work.

I opened my eyes. I am lying on a hospital bed without a smartphone, without a passport. Where am I? How did I get here? It’s hard to think: as if I'm trying to take a triple integral in my mind.

On the hand of a hematoma - I remember that at night she pulled a catheter from Vienna with a needle and turned off again. And yesterday there was an ambulance and the road to the hospital. I am in Hungary; It seems that my friend and I have been poisoned yesterday.

Fatal goulash

On the eve of my friend Vera at the restaurant For Sale Pub, we ate a national Hungarian dish - goulash. There, I once tried the goulash and the host of the "eagle and the tails" Zhanna Badoev. This is the very place where the shells of nuts can be thrown right on the floor, and attach a piece of paper with your message to the wall. Thanks to this release of Travel Show, the restaurant is very popular among Russian and Ukrainian tourists. But the recommendations of TV presenters and critics do not save: mass poisoning occur even in Michelin restaurants.

There was a warm spring evening, and after dinner at For Sale Pub, Vera and I decided to walk home on foot. But ten minutes later they realized: something is going wrong.

First, the head was spinning at Vera. We thought that this sun was baked, because all day we walked around the local castle. But soon it was muddied by me, thoughts were confused, objects lost their clearness. We barely reached the apartment of our friend Elvira, who stopped. By that time, Vera and I already began to vaguely guess: in the restaurant we were poisoned, and probably it was not just rotten meat.

Until the last, we hoped that we were just tired or ate an expired pepper. Elvira was already asleep. Vera and I collapsed onto the sofa, but we could not fall asleep. I wanted to drink terribly, my heart was pounding, and in my head it was as if something was in the alarm and shouted: “Danger! Run! Save yourself! " But how and from what to escape? We tried to google what to do with drug poisoning. But the text was blurred before his eyes, and the meaning of the words slipped away from understanding. Then Vera suggested calling an ambulance. And after that, her consciousness turned off - then she does not remember anything.

But I will find out then. And at that moment I only saw how Vera, sitting on the bed and looking at me with a smile, said: “How good, I walk around the Arbat!” So for the first time I got acquainted with hallucinations. I understood that I couldn’t call an ambulance on my own: I didn’t even analyze the text on the smartphone screen. And she went to wake Elvira.

Although "went" - it is said loudly. It was hard to walk too, I really wanted to fall. I will never forget the expression of horror on Elvira's face when she saw me and realized that something terrible was happening.

To our happiness, the doctors arrived quickly. I was still conscious, gathered for myself and the faith of things to the hospital, told the brigade what happened. But I also had hallucinations. Do you know what is the worst? To see a huge dog in the hallway and realize that it is unreal. And that you are not able to manage this, you do not understand what is happening to you, and you can’t help yourself.

As soon as we got into an ambulance, consciousness ceased to obey. Elvira will then tell you that I was quite adequate by moments, but sometimes I said something strange and tried to escape from the car. When we crossed the threshold of the hospital and I realized that they would definitely help us here, I finally turned off.

Attempt to escape

My ward looks like in deaf hospitals far beyond the Moscow Ring Road. Perhaps because it is toxicology. One toilet - and that without a castle. I'm shocked. But I would not trust that day with my memory: maybe the ward was very nothing, I just remembered it differently.

The neighbor emotionally says something. We are chatting with her, she says that she was poisoned by something at a party. Then Elvira will tell me that the neighbor was hanging in Italian. I do not know Italian.

The thought does not let me go that you need to find your smartphone. Without him, I feel as helpless as possible. Therefore, I am actively trying to escape from the ward in search of my documents and phone. In the corridor, nurses intercept me, they do not want to listen to anything - either they do not understand, or in toxicology is so customary. Yes, and I'm not sure that I am explained quite clearly: there is still a fog in my head, and I periodically fall into a sticky, nasty dream. I am returned to the ward.

And yet, during wakefulness, I try to be as productive as possible: I don’t have shoes either, so I make myself socks from the bandages found by the bed. The floor is very cold! The nurse finally understood me, or just guessed, looking at my “socks”, and gave me slippers. But thoughts are confused again, and I sleep.

I am making another attempt to escape - now to find faith. It should be somewhere in the hospital, together it will be easier to get out of here. For some reason, I am sure that it is necessary to get out and as soon as possible. I’m walking along the corridor, shugging from nurses - otherwise they will drive into the ward. I get to the stairs to the second floor, and there is a priest. I fall into a stupor, start to think: what if something happened to Vera? Yes, I can’t think logically at that moment. It becomes scary, and I return to the ward.

More victims

A nurse looks at me, and Elvira with her. How glad I am to her! She is very pale, looks at me somehow strange and very carefully. He asks if I remember her. Of course, I remember - why such a question? I feel with what relief it exhales: “Doctors told me to be ready for everything at night. To the fact that you will not wake up. What will you fall into a coma. That you lose your memory. "

Elvira slept all night on cold chairs in the reception room, she did not find a place for herself and already began to look for other hospitals to transfer us there if we do not come across. In the morning, doctors told her that she could only see one of her friend - me. But where is Vera?

When the ambulance brought us to the hospital at night, the doctors were not even surprised. They only asked if we were in the afternoon in that restaurant and whether we ate goulash there. They did not even demand insurance. But then I found out that she was needed by those who were in the hospital “Self”. We were told that we are already at least the 15th of the For Sale restaurant. And some more people did not go to the hospital and somehow transferred everything on their feet.

It was atropine. In the goulash there was an overwhelming content of atropine. The one that is used as an antidote in poisoning with phosphoruscorganic formations and other combat poisons. For example, according to Alexei Navalny, it was the quick introduction of Atropine that saved him from death after a “newcomer” poisoning.

If you sort with atropine itself, memory loss, breathing paralysis, cramps, hallucinations are possible, and in severe cases - a coma. Doctors say that if we went to bed at home, the next morning we could simply not wake up. Fortunately, everyone was pumped out in the hospital.

We were finally told that faith in the ward of intensive therapy. Even in the ambulance, the doctors noticed that she had a bad cardiogram, and therefore they took her at once almost to intensive care. We find her - she sleeps, everything is fine with her. You can exhale a little. My things are returned to me, they will only be given a passport upon discharge. I have already come to my senses, as far as possible, and I think only about how to quickly take faith and leave the hospital. We go out with Elvira into the yard, sit there on a bench and talk, and a police car is in front of the hospital.

Get out of Budapest

Then Vera will tell me that she woke up tied to a hospital bed and did not understand where she was and what was happening. She should convince the nurses that she came to her senses and was no longer crazy. After that, things and clothes were returned to her.

And we are moving to the active phase of the “Escape from the Hungarian Hospital” plan. The sensations are given to sensations that on the next morning of the next day we have a reverse plane to Russia, so we do not want to linger in the company of doctors and droppers. And it seems that everything is fine with us: we came to our senses, and when we get home, everything will become very good. (Spoiler: He won't.)

We go to ask for an extract. We convince the doctor that there are no hallucinations, everything is in order with us, we need to go home. We say convincingly, and at that moment we believe in what we say. We are released. In the subway, Vera, looking at empty seats on the contrary, exclaims: "Oh, a little man is dancing!" Elvira and I look at each other in horror.

At home, Elvira gradually returns to me the ability to control the fingers and at least slightly distinguish the letters on the screen of the smartphone. Imagine that you have generously dripped into your eyes to expand the pupils - as when examining the optometrist. The image before your eyes will begin to blur - and you can hardly read. Some of these drops also contain a small amount of atropine, so the effect is so familiar. But after taking the doctor, vision is restored in a couple of hours. This process took us for several days.

And I still constantly hear music in my head. She is beautiful, although unfamiliar. I think that maybe this is how composers composed their works - what if they also had auditory hallucinations? But with faith by that time, almost everything is in order. My hallucinations will completely and irrevocably pass by morning.

The next day we fly to Russia. I do not immediately remember where I live, the names of shopping centers in which there were hundreds of times, and dozens of details. As if some chains in the head broke off and they need to be restored. Dressing in my memory will scare me for a few more months, the hand from which I pulled out the dropper will be disturbed. It turns out that then I greatly damaged my vein, so the hand will hurt for a long time - occasionally it reminds of itself so far. It seems that this story will remain with me in the form of PTSR (post -traumatic stressful disorder), but I will understand this only after a few years, when to write this text.

But how did Atropin get into that unfortunate goulash? The investigation in Hungary revealed nothing special. In local news, they wrote about the purchase of caraway seeds with this restaurant, which is used as a seasoning for a ghoul. But together with Tmin, they received a very similar to a poisonous plant containing atropine. In that batch of caraway seeds, there were so many this plant that the goulash was deadly. But there was no malicious intent.

The restaurant was closed for a couple of days and opened again. In the consular department of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Hungary, they sympathized with me and answered that I could contact a lawyer on my own. Upon arrival in Russia, it was very bad for me for a long time (for two weeks I got down with a temperature at 40, and then I came to my senses for several weeks), and I did not do anything like that.

And this is not surprising: the investigations of mass poisoning in public catering almost never lead to a result. In 2019, about thirty visitors to the Michelin RIFF restaurant in Spain were in a hospital with symptoms of poisoning. Smors were among the suspects - dishes with them ate everyone they later hospitalized. One of the visitors died shortly after poisoning. However, the court did not have a connection between the death of a woman and food in a restaurant, and the investigation was stopped.

Over time, my memory has completely returned to me. But neither I nor Vera still eat the goulash.