By STAFF REPORTERS and NZPA
A "litany of disasters" cost New Zealand architect John Fitzgerald his life after he contracted a deadly bacterial disease in Egypt, his upset sister said from London yesterday.
Mr Fitzgerald, aged 28, died on Saturday in an air ambulance on the way to hospital in Austria,
after medical incompetence and red tape delayed specialist help.
London lawyer Sally Fitzgerald said her brother fought the crippling disease for 50 hours when its symptoms appeared while he was holidaying in southern Egypt.
New Zealand friends Sandra Bennett, a doctor, and her husband Dan Popham, 27, donated blood in a bid to keep him alive until his travel insurers, American Express, flew to the rescue.
In Paris, Ms Fitzgerald tried desperately to get American Express to send help, only to become entangled in red tape.
"It was really just a litany of disasters from start to finish."
Her brother had been abandoned by his tour company, which had not bothered to check his condition, then let down by his insurer.
"To be quite frank, they were crap," she said. "We lost at least half a day through the bureaucracy we had to go through. We had a window of opportunity at the beginning to save him from this disease that was taken away from him."
A spokesman for American Express last night said the company needed to permission of family members before it could comment on claims.
The trio were part of a tour party which was a week into a two to three-week tour of Egypt and Jordan when Mr Fitzgerald developed the symptoms of meningococcal septicaemia. The disease struck quickly.
Within an hour, his stiff back had deteriorated and he was unable to walk. A purple rash resembling tiny pinpricks began creeping over his body and 50 hours later he was dead.
Dr Bennett and Mr Popham took him to hospital in Luxor, where doctors did not accept Dr Bennett's diagnosis.
When the hospital ran out of blood and the platelets needed to halt internal bleeding, they were told to drive three hours south to Aswan through bandit country.
"They were told it [Aswan] had a full medical team waiting with blood and platelets and they would send an ambulance out halfway through the desert to meet them," Ms Fitzgerald said.
"No ambulance arrived. They got to Aswan, there was no one there. No medical team waiting, no blood, no platelets. He didn't get any platelets for another seven hours.
"Sandra basically battled for about 50 hours, trying to get blood, platelets, antibiotics, fluids. They just weren't treating him at all. No one even came to see him in the last two hours.
"She begged someone to come up and see him and they just laughed it off. They said, 'He'll be all right'."
Dr Bennett said the Egyptian medical authorities had blocked them all the way.
"They refused to give him antibiotics until after they had done blood tests, which they said would take three weeks."
American Express got an air ambulance to Aswan about 1 am on the day Mr Fitzgerald died, but the ambulance doctor, Austrian Eva Kofler, said she knew when she saw him there was very little chance.
Auckland Hospital's head of infectious diseases, Dr Rod Ellis-Pegler, said meningococcal septicaemia attacked the bloodstream and was one of the most rapidly killing bacterial diseases.
"You could have your first symptom at 8 o'clock in the morning and be dead by 8 o'clock that night."
He was not able to say if Mr Fitzgerald would have survived if he had received immediate treatment, because each case had so many different elements to it. But it was better not to delay treatment if possible.
Mr Popham contracted the disease earlier in the trip but got the right antibiotics and made a full recovery.
His mother, Sheryll Popham, said from Te Anau yesterday that Mr Fitzgerald and her son had been friends since studying architecture together at Victoria University in Wellington.
"John was a wonderful guy, a gentle giant who wouldn't hurt a fly."
Ms Fitzgerald said she wanted to publicise what had happened, because people thought they could travel safely in exotic places if they had insurance.
"Always take a mobile phone. They didn't have a mobile phone and the hospital would not let them make international calls."
Mr Fitzgerald's funeral will be held in Manakau, near Levin, next week.
By STAFF REPORTERS and NZPA
A "litany of disasters" cost New Zealand architect John Fitzgerald his life after he contracted a deadly bacterial disease in Egypt, his upset sister said from London yesterday.
Mr Fitzgerald, aged 28, died on Saturday in an air ambulance on the way to hospital in Austria,
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