Putin critic Alexei Navalny put in 'artificial' coma to stop 'very deep convulsions' after suspected poisoning
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been put in a coma after he was hospitalized over suspected poisoning. The arch-critic of Vladimir Putin was recently flown to a German hospital for treatment. Photos taken from the tarmac point of an Omsk, Siberia airport show Navalny being lifted into a private air ambulance. The flight then took him to Berlin's Charite hospital for treatment.
The photos show the flight taking off just after 8 am local time to make the five-hour journey. Navalny's personal doctor Anastasia Vasilyeva revealed that he had been put in an 'artificial' coma to stop his 'very deep convulsion', reports Daily Mail. A 'poison or some toxic agent' is expected to have caused Navalny's dire condition, Vasilveya said, adding that 'metabolic changes' could not have caused the brain damage, disputing the cause cited by Russian doctors.
Navalny, 44, was on a flight to Moscow from Tomsk on Thursday, August 20, when began screaming in agony and fell seriously ill. A video taken post the incident showed Navalny being taken on a stretcher from the aircraft to an ambulance awaiting him in Omsk, Siberia, where he was admitted to an intensive care unit. According to his press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, Navalny was unconscious and she suspects that his tea was poisoned. After an initial diagnosis of "toxic poisoning," he was rushed to the hospital. Navalny, earlier that day, was pictured drinking from a cup at a cafe at Tomsk airport before catching his flight, the Sun reported.
A video from the hospital in Omsk show an ambulance with rear doors open as medics wearing masks lift an unconscious Navalvy inside. Another shows the ambulance entering the Omsk airport before Navalny was flown to Berlin in an air ambulance chartered by the German NGO Cinema for Peace. Navalny's supporters believe that his tea was laced with poison and that Kremlin is behind both the illness and the delay in transferring him to top hospitals.
You can see the photos and videos here.
In a chat with Radio 4's Today Programme, Vasilyeva opened up about not being allowed to see Navalny at the hospital in Siberia. "They didn't allow nobody except Yulia, his wife, and his brother to come to him and visit him. So that's why I didn't see him but I spoke to his doctors and at least they described the whole clinical picture and I understood all about his health, about his condition now and it's not very good news."
She added: "So he's in a coma. He's in coma number two and some toxic agent, some toxic substance, that I think [...] only some poison or some toxic agent can influence in such a way that it damages the brain." Vasilyeva also revealed Navalny suffers from a 'convulsive syndrome' and his coma is 'artificial' to prevent 'very deep convulsions'. "What can lead to this condition? Only some toxic substance. Russian doctors didn't say anything about it. They said it is only metabolic changes and carbohydrate changes. But all doctors can understand that no damage and changes of the metabolic system can lead to damage of the brain," she said.
Vasilyeva also hopes German doctors will be able to help the politician. "If he was in Germany at the moment of his case, maybe they could have understood quickly what the substance is. But now they can treat him based on his symptoms and his disease," she said. When German specialists were first flown in with advanced equipment on Friday morning at Navalny's family's behest, the Omsk specialists had claimed he was too unstable to move. This has been dubbed by Navalny's supporters a ploy by authorities to stall the process until poison in his system became untraceable.