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June 3rd - June 16th 2021
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Who is he? EXCLUSIVE
A PLUCKY policewoman who arrested Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner in 2017 says police tried to find a ‘blonde man’ who was with him that night. Off-duty officer Vanessa Viera reveals in a new book how she and her colleagues searched the area trying to find the potential accomplice. It came after she arrested dangerous sex offender Brueckner, 44, in a children’s park on the Algarve, at 2.15am during a feria.
Familiar
“He looked so familiar and I knew I had seen him before,” she revealed in the book, My Search for Madeleine, by Olive Press editor Jon Clarke. “It was then I realised he hadn’t come alone and I’d seen him and his friend at one of the bars in the square. Other parents also remembered he had been chatting to another tall blonde man,” added Viera (left). Her grilling of the German came after she was forced to hold off four angry dads of kids he had allegedly flashed at under a slide. She eventually calmed them down and managed to call in colleagues. “I asked him where his friend was and he just smiled and wouldn’t say anything. He wouldn’t tell us where he was staying either.” She continued: “We searched all around for his friend, but it was clear he Continues on Page 2
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Vol. 3 Issue 64 www.theolivepress.es September 9th - September 22nd 2021
TIED UP AND LEFT TO DIE OLIVE PRESS
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Vol. 2 Issue 47
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Summer escape 2
British family slam controversial hospital after mother died from infected bed sores while ‘handcuffed’ in bed EXCLUSIVE By Simon Wade
AN ELDERLY expat was ‘handcuffed’ to a hospital bed which led to a ‘humiliating and agonising death’, claim her family. Kathleen Marshall, who was displaying the early signs of dementia, was admitted into Torrevieja hospital for treatment for dehydration. But when relatives went to visit the 73-year-old British resident, who had lived in Spain for more than two decades, they were shocked to find her restrained in a bed.
Summer escape 3
Lucky blast
DISGRACE!
British expat mum, 33, sent home to die in agony after being refused treatment after 14 hour wait at A&E
her legs earlier that week, and was advised to go to the emergency department if the condition worsened. In regular messages to her mum, she said hospital staff justified making her wait all day because emergencies took priority. After seven hours of waiting in agony with her leg swollen to twice its size, the 33-year-old eventually saw a female doctor. However, she felt her condition was not taken seriously, and insisted the doctor dismissed her after seeing medical notes that mentioned previous treatments for mental illness. In a message to her mother, Jane, a nurse h e r self, she wrote: “ T h e doctor was really nasty,
EXCLUSIVE By Simon Wade
said she’s read my notes and I’m mental in the head.” She said the doctor had told nurses that once she had her X-ray to ‘get her to a taxi and get her home’. In a later message (see right) she added: “The other two nurses were well shocked”. Referring to the doctor, she added: “She hates me.” The part-time charity volunteer stayed on the ward despite the bad feeling in the desperate hope that someone would eventually attend to TRAGEDY: Rachael pictured her leg.
Embolism
with mum Jane
Exhausted, she was eventually sent Jane performed CPR while neighhome at 3am, after 14 agonising bours called for an ambulance but hours in the hospital. Rachael died on the floor of Later that morning, her mother lounge with paramedics also the un- who has 35 years nursing expe- able to revive her. rience - realised something was A Spanish neighbour confirmed gravely wrong and rushed to the Jane that the ambulance staff to nearest pharmacy for medication him that ‘an embolism was told cerand advice. tainly to blame’, after assessing her But by the time she returned, symptoms. Rachael had slipped into uncon- Rachael’s own son, Reece, sciousness and was completely un- had thankfully been staying 13, with responsive. friends that night so did not witness his mother’s death. The family is now looking for answers as to why medics failed to take Rachael’s illness seriously and to provide treatment that A WOMAN had to go to hospital could have saved her life. fish bit her foot at El Pinet beachafter a Jane in La has sought legal advice, with Marina. a view to preventing such a tragedy this shouldn’t happen to Beach-goers initially believed anyone.” it was happening to someone else. Rachael was cremated at Torrevieja from a blue shark after a crematorium last week with dozens recent sighting in of friends, family and colleagues in Benidorm. Animal But it “The way my daughter was treated attendance. turned out in her final hours is nothing short Kind neighbours had helped toto be a of disgusting - you wouldn’t treat an wards the expensive funeral costs at bite from short notice. animal that way,” she sobbed. “Mona memey isn’t the issue, what difference ber of the If Olive Press readers would would it make anyway? Golfar fish family, “I just want justice for Rachael and like to help the family, there is which has sharp teeth. I want answers to the questions we also a gofundme page to help. have about her awful treatment Opinion Page 6
Nippy dip
CONTACT +34 711 00 49 70 – howieuk99@google
TRAGIC: Kathleen was tied to a bed at Torrevieja hospital (below) mum developing bed sores which Firth, 33, died in agony at home of became infected. a suspected embolism, after TorThey say the situation was made revieja hospital sent her home afworse as she was left to lie in soiled ter she had waited a full day to get bedclothes. treatment. The alleged mistreatment comes In more damning criticism of the just weeks after the Olive Press public hospital, the Marshall family reported on another British expat claim staff had disconnected emerwho had died after being refused gency help buttons on the ward. treatment at the They added that they ignored cries same hospital for help from many patients and (see story, top were “never off their phones.” right). “If this happened in the UK, it Mother Rachael would be considered nothing but abuse,” George Marshall, 51, told the Olive Press, this week. He later discovered his mum who had moved with him and his wife Sharon to Spain from Luton in 2000 - had not SALES & RENTALS SPECIALISTS been given any pain relief. Moriara•Calpe•Jalon•Javea•Denia•Altea After noticing she was constantly grimacing from www.moraira-hamiltons.net
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FLASHBACK: Our last issue
Nappy
They found her also wearing a nappy, despite the fact that she was ‘able to use’ the toilet and wash herself. Son George, who lives in San Miguel de Salinas, has failed to get an explanation over what he insists was “humiliating treatment”. He claims t h a t b e i n g forced to stay in the same position in bed, led to his
August 26th - September 8th 2021
Phew! We survived the heatwave with a bit of help from our friends....
QUICK-thinking lifeguards have saved a baby from choking to death on an ice cube. The one-year-old girl was licking it to keep cool on a Santa Pola beach A YOUNG British woman died hours when she swallowed it and it got after being dismissed by doctors stuck in her windpipe. and Despite the baby’s pulse stopping, told to go home after waiting 14 the two Cruz Roja lifeguards used hours at a hospital for treatment. Rachael Firth, who worked as a livethe Heimlich manoeuvre to get it and then revived the youngster. out in carer, sought help at Torrevieja’s A&E on August 14, after suffering A doctor later confirmed that the days baby was fine, although her mother of pain. needed treatment for shock. She was seen by her GP for pain in
A RUSSIAN man had a lucky escape when he was blown off his boat after an explosion at Altea's Greenwich Marina. The 50-year-old was working on the engine when the blast threw him into the water. A mixture of gases in a confined space is believed to have caused the incident.
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Summer escape 1
A TODDLER has miraculously escaped injury after falling from a second floor apartment block. The two-year-old boy had climbed onto a chair on the balcony of the holiday apartment in Benidorm and slipped over the railing and plummeted to the street below. Luckily his fall was cushioned, firstly by an awning and then by a local man who tried to catch the child. The holidaymaker appeared to be completely unharmed when police arrived on the scene. It is not known if the passer-by suffered any injury. The toddler was taken to the Villajoyosa Hospital for a thorough examination to ensure he did not suffer any serious injuries.
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the pain of the infected sores, he asked nursing staff to confirm what painkillers had been administered. He was given the reply: “Oh, do you think she needs some?” A hastily-arranged morphine treatment left Kathleen incredibly nauseous, but allegedly staff hadn’t noticed that constant vomiting had dislodged her feeding pipe. Consequently, fluids were fed directly into her lungs, and she developed respiratory problems as a result. After two agonising weeks, Kathleen was sent home, but it soon transpired she had septicaemia from what had developed into ‘Stage 4 bedsores’. A return to the same hospital saw her die within a week, less than a month after being first admitted for a simple rehydration treatment. “Mum is definitely in a better place now, but her passing should have been a dignified affair with her family by her side, not alone and in agony up until her final breath,” continued George.
Neglect
His mother’s death certificate mentioned three reasons for her passing: respiratory problems, dementia and the ulcer. The family is convinced that Kathleen suffered ‘criminal neglect’ and believe others may have suffered in a similar way. He is now seeking other local families, expat or Spanish, that have suffered at the hands of the hospital. He hopes that by joining with others and speaking up about certain practices it will raise awareness and pressure authorities to make improvements in care. Opinion Page 6
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