United Kingdom: Tourist dies in Türkiye, body returned to family...minus heart

When travel turns into a nightmare... It's a sordid affair that's rocking the United Kingdom. Beth Martin, a 28-year-old British woman, died during a trip to Turkey last April. As reported by the Daily Mail and The Telegraph , the autopsy performed by British doctors after the body was repatriated in early May revealed that the young woman's heart was... absent. The family of this mother of two is demanding answers from the Turkish authorities.

On April 26, while boarding a flight to Istanbul with her husband and two children, Beth Martin felt unwell. What appeared to be food poisoning turned out to be more worrisome. The young woman was hospitalized the next day at Istanbul's Marmara University Hospital.

In a video posted on her Instagram account, a friend of the couple said: "The insurance company wanted to move her to a private hospital, but the public hospital in Istanbul did not want to cooperate […] They transferred her to another hospital to do an angiogram, but they said her heart was fine, so they did not transfer her to a private hospital. Then she died."

Testifying on an online fundraising page dedicated to the family, Robert Hammond, another friend, claimed that the family was not informed of the seriousness of Beth Martin's condition. Luke Martin, her husband, was even briefly arrested by Turkish police on suspicion of poisoning his wife, before being eventually released. The man was allegedly interrogated "using hotel staff as translators, before getting him to sign a document stating that his wife had died at 9 a.m. that day," The Telegraph reported.

However, the family was able to visit Beth Martin during the day while she was still alive. She ultimately died that same evening. According to official documents, Beth Martin died of "cardiac arrest resulting in multiple organ failure."

It was only during the autopsy, which was carried out after the body's repatriation, that the family learned the unthinkable: the absence of a heart. Turkish authorities, for their part, claimed that the young woman "had not undergone any surgery during her time in hospital" and that there was no need "to remove any organs." An investigation was opened by the British justice system to try to clarify the real causes of Beth Martin's death and explain the absence of her heart.

Relatives of the mother of two have also opened a fundraiser, titled "From family holiday to unimaginable loss," to help cover hospital and funeral costs. Nearly £260,000 (around €310,000) has already been raised.