(Adds AFM statement)
The Armed Forces of Malta said today that an internal board of inquiry has been appointed to investigate the circumstances which led a soldier to eat a a poisonous beetle.
The 30-year-old soldier from Żejtun is in intensive care after eating the beetle in a dare with colleagues during lunch break, sources said.
Darren Mangion, who has a one-year-old daughter and is stationed at Luqa airport, ingested the potentially lethal blister beetle on Thursday afternoon. Within 24 hours he suffered complete renal failure and fell into a coma. But his situation improved slightly yesterday and he was more responsive, the sources said.
Doctors at Mater Dei Hospital consulted a UK expert who informed them there was no antidote to the beetle’s poison. “Doctors are doing their best to manage the patient,” a spokesman for the health authorities said.
When contacted, insect expert David Mifsud agreed there was no antidote but offered a ray of hope adding he believed Mr Mangion could be saved by using other methods, such as injecting charcoal-based chemicals into his system to absorb the poison.
The sources said Mr Mangion was taken to hospital the day after he ingested the bug.
It is not clear how much time passed between the instant Mr Mangion fell ill and when the cause of his condition was diagnosed.
However, the sources said, doctors identified the cause of the problem after Mr Mangion’s colleagues turned up with footage of him holding the beetle before ingesting it. Part of the footage was shown during the 8 p.m. PBS news on Monday. Dr Mifsud, a senior University lecturer in biology, said that Malta had about 2,000 species of beetles.
The blister beetle, or oil beetle, is one of the rarer kinds and there were 10 species of it. This insect has a distinctive shape as its abdomen is very exposed. It contains a powerful poison, cantharidin, which can be deadly to humans if ingested. If the beetle comes in contact with skin it oozes the oily poison that forms blisters.
It is difficult to devise an antidote for this poison, Dr Mifsud said as he discredited a message circulating on Facebook asking people to help find a blister beetle to extract an antidote. Asked whether the insects posed a risk for toddlers, who put anything in their mouth, he said: “I doubt children will come in contact with one but it’s good to be aware.”