Deaths rock families

BY GLORIA BAUAI
THE residents of Salamanda in Lae are still in shock over the deaths of their relatives from methanol poisoning last weekend.
One of the deceased was Paul Guba, 25, from Northern.
His friend, Paul Changau, recalled their last hours together.
“When I met him on Saturday around 8pm, he was drunk. So I brought him home,” he said.
Changau said Guba sat down, chatted on social media for a while and had dinner.
At 12am, Guba became feverish, started clenching his teeth and scratching the floor with his nails, then jumping and hanging onto the windows.
“We had never seen anything like it, so everyone in the house was scared,” he said.
“I was the eldest and tried to calm him down. We prayed and did all we could into the early hours of Sunday morning.”
In the morning, an adult who suspected methanol poisoning, advised them to give Paul beer.
Mum, Anne Guba, bought three bottles of beer but by then her second eldest son was already unresponsive.
“(At Angau hospital) when the nurses said sorry, I thanked them. I accepted that Paul was my first child to die,” she said.
That same morning, 16 boys were rushed into the hospital’s emergency department.
Five died on Sunday.
Emergency doctor Alex Peawi said another who travelled into Madang died there.
Residents confirmed seven deaths by Sunday morning.
“This is an eye-opener for our community, especially our youth,” Changau said.
“Paul was a humble person, easy-going, respected everyone and was loved by all.”
Paul is survived by his parents, three brothers and two sisters.