Backpacker's Party Night Nearly Turns Deadly After Shocking Diagnosis In Remote Indonesia

A British backpacker travelling in Indonesia had the surprise of a lifetime when she thought she was hungover following a night of partying, only to be diagnosed with a life-threatening illness with no adequate healthcare facilities around. 27-year-old Alysha Pyrgotis was on the remote Indonesian party island of Gili Trawangan in June this year when she was left vomiting, in addition to a severe bout of diarrhoea.

Hailing from Bradford, West Yorkshire, Ms Pyrgotis decided to visit Southeast Asia on a whim, following a breakup. She was in the middle of a seven-and-a-half-month trip when she came down with fever that soon turned into something more serious.

Initially, Ms Pyrgotis believed that her symptoms were the result of having one too many drinks the night before. However, when she became physically unable to get out of bed due to feelings of being 'delirious', the youngster knew she was in trouble.

"I was bed bound, in a lot of pain with my muscles and my bones. I was a bit delirious. I couldn't concentrate at all, that's when I started to panic. The guy I was travelling with at the time started to realise I was quite poorly, I wasn't hungover," Ms Pyrgotis was quoted as saying by Mirror.

With no hospitals on the tiny island, Ms Pyrgotis was running out of options as the pain persisted. "Even water, I would sip water and it would come straight back up. It was a very, very extreme sickness," she said.

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'Thought I was going to die'

Eventually, a local doctor visited her and tested her blood. It was confirmed that she had typhoid -- a bacterial infection which can kill one in five of those infected if they do not get treatment.

"I thought I was going to die, to be honest. It was that bad, I literally thought "this is it". I was really worried about telling my family. I didn't tell them until after I'd been poorly because they were having a lot of stress at work at the time."

She was subsequently placed on a drip for the next six days in a small medical shack, but after returning a negative typhoid test, she hurried out of the country as her travel visa was about to expire.

"They took me off the drip and the next day I had to fly to Bangkok. I still was very sick, the flight was horrific," she recalled. "Even the next few days in Bangkok were very difficult, I couldn't do anything. The lasting effects of it were still a couple of weeks of not feeling quite right."

As per the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated nine million people get sick from typhoid and 110,000 people die from it every year. Symptoms include prolonged fever, fatigue, headache, nausea, abdominal pain, and constipation or diarrhoea. Some patients may have a rash. Severe cases may lead to serious complications or even death.