That is the casualty count for a group of youngsters that had found an ‘intact’ bottle of whiskey and decided to drink it. It turned out that it also contained pesticide.

The incident took place in Almeria and the dead victim was a 31-year-old Moroccan. The other six victims are being treated at the Complejo Hospitalario de Torrrecárdenas.

The emergency services had received a call from a young lad to say that his friend was very ill after drinking some whiskey. This was followed by a cascade of similar calls from the area, around Calle Trajano.

The ambulance crew found them all in an unconscious state and first mistook the symptoms – logically – for alcohol poisoning; i.e., too much alcohol for the nervous system to cope with.

One of the victims managed to explain that they had almost immediately felt ill after drinking whiskey from a bottle with a well known label on it.

The group, five Spanish lads in their early 20’s, had found the bottle of unopened whiskey on the steps of the entrance to a building some days earlier. They took it with them on their next night out.

Just when they thought they had all the victims accounted for, another call came in with two further victims, aged 31 and 37, who were literally foaming at the mouth and unconscious. Both men were Moroccans and the younger of the two later died. They had found the abandoned, half-empty bottle and had decided to finish it off, but it ended up finishing one of them off.

The bottle was not recovered.

(News: Almeria, Andalucia)