Wild and deadly in Laos
Go to story details and video:
Melba Blyth-Elvin: It was crazy but it was, like, awesome crazy, like, it was just fun.
ALEX CULLEN: Far from home and a million miles from care...
Man: This is it! This is the (BLEEP) party!
ALEX CULLEN:..a wild strip of river bars where every day is one big party. Part rave, part rite of passage.
Annika Morris: There's nothing like it anywhere else in the world.
ALEX CULLEN: Nothing is off limits but that freedom can come at the highest price. Tonight, how our most adventurous young people, one after another...
ALEX CULLEN: Australian?
Man: Yes.
ALEX CULLEN: Australian?
Man: Yes.
ALEX CULLEN: Australian. ..are dying, senselessly, far from home.
Annika Morris: I knew I was in trouble.
ALEX CULLEN: The incredible fight to save a friend...
Melba Blyth-Elvin: I said, "Can you please help?" And she said, "No. Leave her, she's finished."
ALEX CULLEN: And the heartache for the families of those left behind.
I thought maybe they made a mistake. But it wasn't a mistake, it was my little girl.
ALEX CULLEN: We're on our way to Vang Vieng - a bustling town in northern Laos. Along this river, there are bars which host dance parties from midday until sunset. The river is lined with diving platforms and flying foxes. Partygoers swim or float to the bars on tyre tubes.
Annika Morris: It was our first trip on our own.
ALEX CULLEN: A month ago, childhood friends Annika and Melba, both from Melbourne, joined the backpacker pilgrimage to the river.
Annika Morris: You get out of the tuk tuk and it's just this whole new place that you've just never seen before, like nothing like it, it's amazing.
Annika Morris: It's, "Let's get drunk, let's have fun."
Melba Blyth-Elvin: And to get from bar to bar you either jump in your tube, have a swim or some of them you fly fox into the middle of the water and then they'll throw ropes out into the water and drag you into their bar.
ALEX CULLEN: And when you get to that bar, what happens?
Melba Blyth-Elvin: At the entrance to the bar, they'll be waiting with a Lao-Lao shot for you, the local whiskey.
ALEX CULLEN: Lao-Lao whiskey is a dangerous backyard brew with an alcohol content of about 50 percent.
ALEX CULLEN: But bootleg whiskey, high spirits and shallow water are a dangerous mix.
Rob White: Supposed to be the perfect getaway.
ALEX CULLEN: In January, the wild party at Vang Vieng turned deadly for 26-year-old Sydney salesman Lee Hudswell.
Rob WhiteHe was basically fearless, did exactly what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it.
ALEX CULLEN: Lee was on a trip through South-East Asia with four of his best mates, including Rob White. Their first stop-the Full Moon Party in Thailand.
Rob White: Basically, this was going to be his last hurrah, basically get it all out of his system. Just live life to the max over there, completely enjoy himself, spoil himself and then come back and settle down.
ALEX CULLEN: On January 10, Lee and his mates came here. They paid their $15, got a stamp, grabbed their tubes, and made the short trip to the start of the river. They launched their tubes and began a watery bar crawl. At the third bar, Lee climbed to the top of one of the high platforms.
MAN: Here we go. Ready?!
Rob White: He was just going down the flying fox like 100, 1000 people had done that day. Came off the end of it... ..hit the water and never came back up. People start diving into the water trying to find Lee. Obviously, panic set in at this stage.
ALEX CULLEN: Rob had already left but his mates described the desperate efforts to save Lee.
Rob White: And someone has got to him, pulled him up to the shore and he was unconscious and not breathing.
ALEX CULLEN: He was driven 3km to a hospital where a terrible situation got worse.
Rob White: Basically, the doctor doesn't know what they're saying or what to do.
ALEX CULLEN: Lee had suffered serious internal injuries. An ambulance was called to take Lee to a hospital in the Laos capital four hours away. But as he was being loaded, blood frothed from his mouth. He was rushed back inside and died soon after. Two weeks after Lee died, the body of another Australian - 19-year-old Daniel Eimutis from Melbourne - was found floating in the river.
By some estimates, up to 22 foreigners were killed on the river last year.
On the hospital's gallery of the injured - too many Australians.
ALEX CULLEN: Australian?
Man: Yes.
ALEX CULLEN: Australian?
Man: Yes.
ALEX CULLEN: Australian.
ALEX CULLEN: More Australian travellers are dying in this region than anywhere else overseas. Across the border in Thailand, the famous Full Moon Parties at Ko Phangan often end in tragedy.
MAN: This is not just fun, this is lethal.
ALEX CULLEN: Three Australians have died at the party in the past six years.
Serious injuries, rapes and accidents — especially on motorbikes - right across the region. So many sons and daughters, fearless and fragile.
Marilyn O'Connell: I thought maybe they made a mistake but it wasn't a mistake. It was my little girl.
ALEX CULLEN: Three weeks ago, Marilyn O'Connell's daughter Lana travelled to Thailand for the first time. The 23-year-old from the Gold Coast was a uni student and model. When she arrived in Phuket with her boyfriend, she sent her mum a text message.
Marilyn O'Connell: "Our resort is amazing, we have a huge room. "The food is so good." And that was it. That was the last message she sent me.
ALEX CULLEN: A few days later, the motorbike she was riding with her boyfriend had a head-on collision. Police knocked on her mum's door.
Marilyn O'Connell: He came up to me and he said, "I've got some terrible news. "Lana's died in a tragic accident in Thailand" and I said, "I...I can't believe she's said that to me. "I don't believe it." Lana's father, Tom.
Tom O'Connell: Something's got to be done over there. We need answers, we need to know what's going on, these young kids going over there and dying. It's just no good.
ALEX CULLEN: Back in Laos and the party never ends.....on the banks of a once tranquil river. Tell me Mr T, what did it used to be like before the tourists came?
Mr T: It's like a paradise for me because I like nature.
ALEX CULLEN: He's known as Mr Tand runs an organic farm. In 1997, he accidentally launched tubing on the river. The farmer thought he was doing his workers a favour, floating along the river, cooling off and enjoying the scenery. He didn't realise he'd started a lucrative and ultimately dangerous craze.
Mr T: People come here no more for tubing but they come for party and drinking and drugging and many very bad behaviour.
ALEX CULLEN: While we were filming....a drunk partygoer crashes into the water. He's injured his shoulder and is barely able to stand. A friend helps him to safety and then he collapses. He's OK but what we also discover is another hidden and sinister threat. Drinks are being spiked - especially those of young women like Annika and Melba a month ago.
Melba Blyth-Elvin: Someone handed Annika the shot. That's where things sort of started to go wrong.
ALEX CULLEN: And what did you think was in it?
Annika Morris: Oh, I...just Lao-Lao. Tasted exactly the same.
ALEX CULLEN: So you had the shot, got back in the water — what happened?
Annika Morris: I just started laughing uncontrollably, like really hysterical.
And Mel was like... "What are you doing, it's not funny" and I'm just like, I can't stop. And then I started to hyperventilate.
Melba Blyth-Elvin: When she was not taking breaths in between her laughter was when I realised that there was actually something wrong.
ALEX CULLEN: She was struggling to remain conscious. Melba rushed her to hospital.
Melba Blyth-Elvin: I yelled out for them to help. She started fitting. She'd stop breathing and just go completely still and then she'd start breathing again and fit while she was breathing. That's when I realised we needed help.
I asked the doctors again and the doctor was like, "She's finished."
ALEX CULLEN: Is that what they said?
Melba Blyth-Elvin: I said, "Can you please help?" And she said, "No. Leave her, she's finished." And they just walked away and left her.
ALEX CULLEN: Frantic, Melba ran out to the street. She found a German doctor
who agreed to help.
Melba Blyth-Elvin: He was just rubbing her heart and I was just hitting her face, opening her eyes and he just said, "Keep talking to her."
ALEX CULLEN: For three hours the pair kept Annika conscious. They stopped the fits, calmed her down, slowly, the drugs wore off. Well, the bottom line is you could have died in that hospital.
Annika Morris: Bottom line, yep.
ALEX CULLEN: This never-ending party is everything young Australians seem to want. No rules and freedom to do anything is the attraction - it's also the danger.
Melba Blyth-Elvin: You always go into it invincible and "it won't happen to me" but it does.
ALEX CULLEN: Young and bullet-proof.
Both: Yeah. What we thought.
