"I took vodka with methanol and it left me blind": he was on vacation in Greece and was a victim of the mafia of adulterated drinks

A bar on the Greek island of Zante was one of the last places that Hannah Powell saw before her life changed forever because of a drink.

Her story goes back to August 2016, when the 23-year-old girl was on vacation with her friends in Greece. In this bar, they gave him a vodka, but not everyone: it had been mixed with methanol (burn alcohol). The technique used by the mafias To reduce the cost of drinks and get bigger profits, Hannah would pay with her sight.

"If you're a customer, you think you're buying a legitimate Smirnoff vodka, but it's not like that, they put it in Smirnoff bottles, real bottles, that's why you have no reason to think that it is not authentic ", Hannah explained to the BBC.

After sleeping for a few hours at the hotel where she lived with her friends that morning, Hannah woke up with hangover symptoms and when he opened his eyes, everything was black.

"I asked my friends to open the curtains and they told me that they were already open. At that time I did not know what was going on", she said. The British girl was just a bit far from realizing that I had lost my sight.

His friends insisted that natural light enters the room. Hannah thought they were joking. The confusion has increased. "I got up and turned on the light.It was at that point that I realized that I could not see anything"

The girls understood that Hannah was not playing either. Panic broke out in this room. The young woman was transferred to an emergency hospital on the island.

After being transferred to a medical center in mainland Greece, tests showed that Hannah was suffering from methanol intoxication. His friends too, but they only had stomach cramps and vomiting.

The kidneys of the girl did not work and had to pbad 18 months on dialysis. After this time, his mother could donate.

He lost his sight and three years later, no one is responsible.