THE family of a Bolton pensioner killed by a mystery bug have been told they face a two-week wait for results before deadly Legionnaires disease can be ruled out.

Elsie Ord, aged 77, of Old Hall Lane, Daisy Hill, was taken ill on holiday in the Spanish resort of Benidorm along with five other elderly women and died a week after returning home.

Two other pensioners went into intensive care but are now recovering.

Mrs Ord's devastated only daughter Jacqueline gave permission for a post-mortem to be carried out on her mother in a bid to discover the identity of the killer bug.

But she said the medical results would not now be known for a fortnight.

Mrs Ord had arrived back in Bolton from her two-weeks holiday on Wednesday, March 3, with a severe chest infection.

She was finding it very difficult to breath and was very weak.

The grandma-of-three was put on a course of antibiotics by her Westhoughton doctor but was admitted to the Royal Bolton Hospital where she died last Wednesday morning after the infection turned to pneumonia.

Clinic

Her friend Ann Horrocks, 76, of Park Road, Westhoughton, spent more than a week in an intensive care clinic in Benidorm.

She is now recovering at home and has spoken for the first time about her ordeal.

She said: "I'm grateful to be alive and well and back home.

"I didn't even remember going to the hospital.

"I was just out for the count.

"But the treatment I got from the Spanish doctors was superb.

"We were all healthy before we went out there.

"It was just a bug that was in the air."

Annie Aldred, 80, of St James Street, Daisy Hill, was also rushed to the Royal Bolton Hospital days after returning home.

She is making a recovery and her family are anxiously waiting for the results of tests.

Infections

All three had been suffering severe chest infections which developed into pneumonia.

The other women on the trip were Margaret Davies, 68, of Tithe Barn Street, Edna Rothwell, 73, of Upper Lees Drive, and Isabel Fisher, 80, of Holinacre.

All the women, who are members of the Friendship Club which meets at Carnegie Hall, are in their 70s and 80s.

They booked a holiday at the 318-room three star hotel Sol Ocas, 300m from Levante Beach in the northern end of the resort with Direct Holidays.

But Direct Holidays has denied there is anything wrong with the hotel and put the mystery illness down to a severe flu epidemic in the resort.

Initial tests for Legionnaries disease have proved negative.

Meanwhile, an outbreak of lethal Legionnaires' disease at a Dutch flower show claimed the life of three more victims, bringing the death toll to 12.

At least 33 other people were infected with the pneumonia-like illness while visiting an annual flower event in Bovenkarpsel, about 40 miles north of Amsterdam.

Health officials said post-mortems confirmed that all 12 victims died from the bacterial infection, which is spread through tiny droplets of contaminated water.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.