Celebrating her friend’s birthday with an evening of cocktails at a popular bar, Radharani Domingos Telles had no idea she was drinking poison – until she went blind.
After taking a sip of her third caipirinha, the 43-year-old interior designer blacked out and was taken to intensive care – where she remained for nine agonising days. Doctors suspected a stroke when she slipped into a coma – but the truth was far more sinister.
Radharani was poisoned by methanol – a poisonous industrial alcohol that was illegally added to the vodka used for her tropical fruit drinks.
She told The Sun: “I had three caipirinhas. I remember ordering the third – and thereafter, I don’t remember anything else. Boom – blackout.”
next One day, Radharani of Sao Paulo, Brazil, woke up dazed—unable to see—and fell asleep during a family lunch.
Within hours, she was in the ICU, on her way to a coma.
Doctors first suspected a panic attack or stroke.
“My blood acidity was incompatible with human life,” she says, as she recalls the ICU head later telling her. “That doctor saved my life.”
He spent nine days in intensive care – five of them fighting to survive.
When she finally woke up, the world had gone dark.
“I said to my husband, ‘Did you turn off the lights?’ But it was not light. These were my eyes,’‘ she said.
“It felt like you were inside a black hole.”
Later tests confirmed what had nearly killed him: 415 milligrams of methanol in his blood – almost three times the lethal dose.
“Surviving was a miracle,” she said.
killer in a glass
Radharani’s case is one of dozens linked to Brazil’s worst methanol poisoning outbreak in recent memory.
The dangerous wave began in late August and has since spread to São Paulo.
At least 68 people have been poisoned across Brazil, 15 of whom have died and more than 100 others are under investigation, according to the Health Ministry.
Sao Paulo remains the epicentre, with about 50 confirmed cases and most of the victims are young adults who simply went out for a drink and to have fun.
Authorities say counterfeit or adulterated vodka, gin and whisky were mixed with methanol – often taken from industrial or fuel supplies – to increase profit margins.
I have stopped going out. maybe i’ll never drink again
radharani domingo,
In some batches, contamination exceeded 40 per cent.
Symptoms may appear hours later, including blurred vision, vomiting, confusion, and eventually blindness or death.
Radharani doesn’t remember anything after her third drink.
That night her husband got a call: she was in intensive care, her kidneys were failing and her body was failing.
Doctors had to guess, and fast.
A doctor, noting his extreme metabolic acidosis, ordered emergency dialysis and treatment for methanol poisoning even before laboratory results came back.
And that decision saved his life.
I told my husband, ‘Help me, I’m dying.’
“Once dialysis started, my condition stabilised,” Radharani said.
“But when they took me out, everything was dark. I could only see silhouettes.”
She left the hospital after more than two weeks, partially blind and with her optic nerves severely damaged.
Experts told him his vision would never recover.
But Radharani revealed, “I was sure I would be able to see again. My husband told me, ‘You may have lost five senses, but you have only lost one.’ This consoled me.”
He estimates that since then, his vision has gradually improved and is now about 30 per cent.
She is learning to live again, returning to part-time work and battling fatigue and tremors.
“It’s like seeing through a fog,” he explained.
“But I can walk around in my house again. That’s already a win.”
a widespread crisis
His personal nightmare is a mirror of a nationwide scam.
In Sao Paulo alone, police have closed bars and confiscated more than 3,000 bottles.
Dozens of illegal liquor distilleries have been raided and at least 20 people have been arrested.
Still, many contaminated bottles remain untested.
“It’s been 50 days and all the bottles at the bar where I drank have still not been analysed,” Radharani said.
“Justice is slow here. Investigations keep going on.”
Officials emphasise that progress is being made, from new reporting channels to expanded laboratory testing.
But the crisis has exposed deep cracks in Brazil’s food and beverage oversight.
The federal government now considers counterfeiting of alcoholic beverages a felony.
Behind the scenes, investigators are still investigating whether organised crime networks linked to fuel smuggling may have supplied the methanol that ended up in the counterfeit bottles.
‘I’ll probably never drink again.’
For Radharani, the loss runs deeper than her vision.
“I’m angry that establishments don’t ensure the safety of the services they provide,” he said.
“Since then I have stopped going out. Now I eat at home. I will probably never drink alcohol again.”
He turned his survival into a warning – recording a video from his hospital bed that went viral and forced authorities to take action.
“I went out for a friend’s birthday on Friday,” she said.
“By Monday, I was in a coma.”
Now she wants justice and to make sure no one else experiences her nightmare.
“Methane should not exist in the human body, period,” she said.
Holes Hotspot ‘Warning List’
It comes as deadly alcoholism spreads across Britain’s holiday hotspot Britain has added 11 more countries to its “warning list” as the global death toll rises.
The alert comes amid rising incidents of deaths and blindness caused by counterfeit or contaminated alcohol across Asia, Africa, South America and Europe.
Britain’s Foreign Office has expanded its methanol-poisoning warning for the second month in a row – naming Bangladesh, India Iran, Jordan, Libya, Malawi, Malaysia, Morocco, Nepal, Papua New Guinea and Rwanda as new high-risk destinations.
They now join countries such as Ecuador, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Russia and Uganda in what officials describe as a “global increase in the number of reported cases”.
The UK has launched a “Know the symptoms of methanol poisoning” campaign, urging Britons to only purchase sealed drinks from licensed venues and avoid buckets, jugs, pre-mixed cocktails and any home-made alcohol.
The crisis is growing rapidly with devastating consequences.
In Laos, British traveller Simone White, 28, was one of several tourists killed last year after drinking free vodka at a hostel in Vang Vieng.
Australian friends Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles, 19, also died in the tragedy.
And Danish friends Anne-Sophie Orkild Koyman, 20, and Freja Wennerwald, 21, died after vomiting blood for 13 hours.
Another British backpacker, 23-year-old Callum MacDonald, who had been drinking there the day before, was left permanently blind.
He recalled waking up to “this kind of kaleidoscopic, blinding light… to the point where I couldn’t see anything”.
Later, when his friends sat with him in the lit hotel room, he asked, “Why are we sitting in the dark? Someone should turn on the lights.”
From Southeast Asia to South America, the rise in methanol-laced alcohol is now a global threat that kills rapidly, blinds survivors and is nearly impossible to detect before it is too late.
Dangers of methanol in the body
Methanol (methyl alcohol) is highly toxic to humans, unlike ethanol, which is the alcohol found in regular beverages.
Even amounts as low as 10–30 ml can be fatal.
The main effects of methanol on the body include:
• Severe metabolic acidosis (a dangerous drop in blood pH).
• Damage to the optic nerve, which can lead to sudden or permanent blindness.
• Effects on the central nervous system: intense headache, dizziness, confusion, seizures and coma.
• Possible respiratory failure, multiple organ failure, and death within hours or days.
Initial symptoms (may be similar to intoxication):
• Nausea, vomiting, stomach pain
• Blurry vision or “snowy vision” (like seeing through a blizzard)
• Difficulty in breathing
There is no home remedy or antidote for it. Any suspicion of consumption of adulterated beverages containing methanol requires immediate medical attention or immediate hospital treatment.
