On a Wednesday we had practical training on our timetable, so I and two of my friends walked to the hospital. We dressed us in our white coats and continued to the room, where the practical lesson should take place.
The lesson started, and our teacher told us, which exercises we should have that day.
But suddenly we learnt that something terrible was happening in the medical school, which was situated only 500 meters from the hospital. All of us ran towards our school, and when we arrived, we were met by a dreadful sight. Students were lying on the ground, shaking in the whole body without being able to control themselves. They also had cramps in the stomach. And beyond them were some other students also on the ground but totally unconscious.
In the beginning we had no idea about what had happened. But somewhat later we learnt that someone had spread a powder, white as chalk, in the class-rooms. It had a very nice smell. There were suspicions that it could be a poison. We also heard that the students had been curious and smelled at the powder. Directly after that some of them got cramps and fell down on the floor.
My fellows and I started directly to help the victims, using “mouth-to-mouth” method, as they had complained they had difficulties to breathe. They were shaking as if they had got an electric shock.
There was a nice smell, like perfume, coming from them. Many shouted or cried. Everyone in the neighbourhood wanted to help them by, by driven them to the hospital with private cars.
After some minutes I got a very strong dizziness, and my seeing got blurred. A friend, standing in front of me, fell down on the ground. I sat down immediately, because I felt I could fell down in any second. I closed my eyes and tried to think at myself.
The only thing I could hear was the ambulance siren, which was on uninterrupted. The ambulance was driving students to the hospital. I remember I felt myself very weak and had an awful headache.
In the same moment a teacher came to me and said he wanted to drive me home.
My symptoms remained one week after I was poisoned. I never visited a doctor as I felt better and better with each passing day. However, some of my friend had not the same luck. They have had to visit doctors many times but are still not better. One of them is married since many years and has not been able to get children. Doktors say that the poisoning has caused her sterility.
This is an important witness:
1. She confirms what the witness from Podujeva (go to “The British doctors”) said: After poking in something white, the symptoms came.
2. She and her friends were poisoned by direct contact with poisoned persons.
3. Some of her friends had symptoms lasting for a very long time.
4. She was never registered as a patient; there must be many others!
Woman, in 1990 working in a factory.
She worked in a textile factory (Pollet) and almost all workers were women. They had heard that something had happened to school children in Podujeva, but knew no details about it.
She worked in the first shift. She remembers that immediately before she got symptoms, she had felt a strange smell, but she can’t remember any details about it. She had not observed any poison.
Suddenly she noticed that many of the workers were fainting and then they fell headlong on the hard betong floor, which meant their heads were hurt. Other workers had started to vomit or were lying on the floor with symptoms, which made her think of epilepsy: they were trembling, they had motions they could not control. White foam was streaming out of their mouths.
Now she fainted herself and was taken to a hospital. Her son saw when she was taken to an ambulance. He saw that all hear body and head were hit by shakings she could not control.
She woke up next day and started to vomit. She says she got good care. Maybe because she had an Albanian doctor. But many of the other workers were nursed by Serb doctors, who said the patients were not ill, but were actors.
Her symptoms did not disappear until one year had gone. Suddenly she could fell down to the ground because she had fainted. Besides, she had got “problems with her head”. Her symptom could be that she did not know the difference between heavy and light. She calls it herself balance disturbances.
She remembers that also her temperament was changed.
She also says it is unpleasant to talk about what happened, and that she wanted to forget it in order to go forward.