Enyobeni Tavern tragedy: Binge drinking and stampede ruled out as causes of 21 deaths

Health authorities in the Eastern Cape province have ruled out stampede and high alcohol intake (binge drinking) as the cause of the 21 deaths at Enyobeni Tavern in East London, Eastern Cape on June 26.

However, the probe on what exactly caused the deaths of 21 pupils from local schools who were celebrating the end of the term in the tavern at Scenery Park township, is not yet over.

Giving the update to the media on Tuesday from East London, Dr Litha Matiwane, the deputy director for clinical services from the Eastern Cape Department of Health, said more digging has to be done even though some possibilities have already been ruled out.

“We have now received the initial blood results from the lab and those blood results… the first three findings are for blood alcohol levels, carbon monoxide levels and preliminary qualitative methanol (alcohol but not suitable for drinking) level results. So, what was found is that for blood alcohol levels the level ranged from 0.05 grams to 0.26 grams per 100 millilitres, which in itself is not conclusive of liquor toxicology (alcohol poisoning),” he said.

The briefing was attended by the premier of the Eastern Cape, Oscar Mabuyane, and the Minister of Police, Bheki Cele, who both vowed they would work hard to get to the bottom of this matter.

Making his concluding remarks on the findings from the lab in Cape Town, he said some hurdles had been cleared and theories put to rest by the preliminary results.

“At this point in time, we can then say that might not have been the final cause of death. Then, the second layer of results that came through to us is that of carbon monoxide which also was ranging from 3.3 to 21% saturation of haemoglobin. Now, under normal circumstances you expect toxicology or liquor levels to be above 50%.

“Again, the understanding is this might not yet be the final cause of what we are looking at as the final cause of liquor toxicology. The last part that we were looking at this point in time, the results that have come through is that of methanol, now, methanol has been detected in all the 21 individuals that were there.

“However, there is still progressive analysis of the level of methanol. So, we just have the qualitative results that says all 21 of them had methanol in their blood but we still need to get the quantitative levels which will then tell us whether these were at lethal or at non-lethal level as well.

“In summary, what we have is that we have now moved from a point where we have said we did exclude the stampede, but now we do have initial results from the toxicology lab. However, at this point in time, there is no conclusive result that says this was the lethal concoction that we are dealing with,” Matiwane said.

Matiwane did not give a time frame of when they expected this matter to be done and dusted so that the grieving families could find closure.

“We are looking out for other activities that may come through, for example, formic acid which is a by-product of methanol and may actually tell us more about the concentration and the levels that actually are found and whether there is toxicity.

“There are other activities, the gastric and bowel issues (samples) that have been taken that will tell us what was in the content of what they have been drinking.”

The owner of the tavern, aged 52 and his two employees have already been charged and arrested for the deaths. They will appear in court next month.

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