Youth poisoned by puffer fish

A VIETNAMESE teenager died after eating a poisonous fish that he and his friends had caught, the Coroner's Court heard yesterday.

Ung Thanh Dien, 16, was poisoned by tetradotoxin - a neural poison - after eating pieces of a puffer-fish liver last year.

He was taken to hospital but died within 12 hours of eating the fish.

In the afternoon of June 4 last year, Ung and another six inmates from Tai A Chau detention centre went to swim at the island's Pok Cho Wan beach, the court heard.

The boys caught only one fish that day, a puffer.

One of the boys, Chi Nguyet Kiet, 18, said it was the first time they had gone fishing at the beach.

Although the boys did not know what they had caught, they cooked the fish and ate it.