Poisonings Prompt Chemical Attack Questions
Col. Liam Collins
Tuesday, July 09, 2019
On March 4, 2018, British authorities say Russian agents poisoned Sergei Skripal—a former Russian military intelligence officer and U.K. double agent—and his daughter using a Novichok nerve agent. The attack took place in Salisbury, England, a town of 50,000 people about 90 miles southwest of London. While it failed to kill Skripal, he remained unconscious for a month and hospitalized for more than two months. His daughter remained in critical condition for three weeks before she regained consciousness and was released from the hospital a month after the attack.
With the immediate attack area isolated and the cleanup underway, the nation was shocked once again when two British nationals were poisoned by the same nerve agent nearly three months later in the neighboring town of Amesbury. One of the two, Dawn Sturgess, fell ill within 15 minutes of contact with the agent and died just over a week later. The other fell ill but recovered. While not the intended targets of the attack, Sturgess’ death demonstrated the persistence and toxicity of the military-grade nerve agent.
https://www.ausa.org/articles/poisonings-prompt-chemical-attack-questions
