TAIPEI (Taiwan News) —An Australian college student suspected of inadvertently ingesting rat poison boarded a medical evacuation flight from Taiwan to Australia on Wednesday (May 3).
Alex Shorey, a 24-year-old Australian college student who came to Taiwan as an exchange student, is suspected of being exposed to rodenticide and was admitted to the intensive care unit of Taipei Medical University Hospital. His family members raised funds for a medical flight back to Australia through the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe page.
Medical aircraft lands at Taoyuan Airport. (CNA photo)
The medical plane arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Tuesday afternoon. An ambulance carrying Shorey arrived at the airport's Terminal 2 at 4:29 a.m. on Wednesday, reported CNA.
After undergoing paperwork and security screening by officers from the National Immigration Agency and Aviation Police Bureau, the ambulance reached the medical aircraft on the apron at 5:30 a.m. The plane carrying Shorey then took off for Australia at 5:50 a.m. that morning.
Staff gather around medical plane. (CNA photo)
According to a report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Shorey, who came to Tamkang University in New Taipei City to participate in the exchange program, was suspected of ingesting rodenticide by mistake and was sent to the hospital. His family raised more than AUD200,000 (approximately NT$4.06 million) through the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe, and about AUD172,000 was spent on the medical plane, while the rest will be donated to the Australian medical evacuation organization, Medical Rescue.
In a press release published on April 29, Taipei Medical University Hospital stated that Shorey was diagnosed by the medical team as being exposed to the second-generation anticoagulant rodenticide, superwarfarin. The patient was transferred to the intensive care unit for observation and treatment due to an allergic reaction to vitamin K1, before being transferred to the general ward.
Ambulance transports Shorey to medical aircraft. (CNA photo)
The patient stated that the poisoning had nothing to do with street food, as was previously rumored, but he could not understand how he was exposed to rodenticide.
According to the university, Shorey started taking Mandarin courses at the Chinese Language Center at Tamkang University's Taipei campus in September last year with a scholarship from the Ministry of Education. He left Taiwan on Feb. 14 of this year, and the university is not aware of when he came back to Taiwan and whether he studied at other schools when he returned.
Medical plane takes off for Australia. (CNA photo)
