A woman has shared a crucial warning for travelers after a harrowing incident in Bali left her temporarily blind and in a life-threatening situation.
Ashley King, at the age of 18, embarked on a journey to the picturesque island in Southeast Asia with her friends in August 2011, just before starting her college education.
Despite her excitement for the trip, King couldn’t shake a sense of unease during her stay in paradise. The journey was marred by theft, illness, and discomfort, but it was a particular drink on her last night in Bali that dramatically altered her life—a cocktail tainted with methanol.
According to King, the cocktail was served in a plastic water bottle advertised as ‘spill-proof for dancing’, and gave no hints of danger.
“Nothing felt different. I didn’t feel any kind of differentness in like my feelings of like drunkness or the way my body was
feeling,” she told Inside Edition.
Following her flight to New Zealand, King began experiencing symptoms such as extreme fatigue, loss of appetite, and severe confusion. She recounted, “When I woke up the next morning, the light was off and I thought that was a little funny. Like, why would someone turn my light off? And I went to the bathroom and I noticed the lighting in the bathroom was also really dim.”
She initially attributed the issue to poor lighting but soon realized it was far graver when she encountered breathing difficulties, prompting an urgent trip to the emergency room.
Doctors initially suspected illicit drug use but were astonished to find high levels of methanol in her system—a toxic alcohol sometimes unlawfully included in drinks in regions of Southeast Asia to reduce costs.
Methanol poses a significant risk as the body processes it, causing the blood to turn acidic and damaging internal organs. In contrast, ethanol, the alcohol typically found in drinks, can slow or halt this process.
King’s life was saved by an unusual treatment approach involving heavy alcohol consumption.
“So what the doctors had to do was give me pure alcohol and get me drunk so that my body would stop metabolizing methanol,” she explained.
“But they had alcohol and orange juice and they told me that I had to drink it incredibly quickly, that they couldn’t give it to me through an IV, but that I had to consume it.
“So, I would finish a drink and then they’d pour me another one, and then I’d finish a drink and they’d pour me another one. And they were encouraging me to drink it faster – it was like the most absurd drinking game I’d ever played.”
She added: “But the drunker I got, the more I could breathe and the more I could see. I went from being in the dark, blind to being able to take in light again, to be able to see my doctors. My breathing went back to normal.
“But meanwhile they had called my family back in Canada and told them to get on the first flight to New Zealand because it was methanol poisoning and there was a very good chance that I wasn’t going to make it.”