Teenage footballer hospitalised after stranger injects her in Magaluf

Taylor Coulter needed hospital treatment after a stranger injected her arm inside Bananas nightclub in Magaluf, leaving the 18-year-old footballer temporarily unable to walk, talk or see properly. The Port Glasgow player was on her first holiday abroad without her parents when the attack happened on June 21, while she was returning from the toilets on the Magaluf strip with 16 friends.

Coulter says a man bumped into her on the stairs near the toilets before plunging a needle into her arm. The drug involved was GHB. Her memory of what followed was badly affected, and she later collapsed after leaving the club, one of the best-known venues in the resort and in operation since 1980.

She received hospital care and precautionary anti-viral medication because clinicians were worried about possible exposure to blood-borne viruses through a contaminated needle. Medical guidance on needlestick injuries treats that risk as serious because sharps contaminated with infected blood can transmit hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV, and urgent assessment after exposure is recommended, ideally within one hour. Traces of an antidepressant were detected in her system.

Coulter, who plays for Greenock Morton Women FC and previously featured for Rangers Women, has said even simple exercise such as running and cycling has become exhausting. The strain is also threatening her planned move to the United States next month, where she is due to take up a football scholarship at Louisiana State University.

Her family said they owe a huge debt of thanks to the friends who looked after her after she became unwell, called her parents and arranged help. The case has intensified concern about safety for young holidaymakers in Magaluf, where the strip draws large numbers of teenagers and young adults each summer and where a needle attack carries a very different medical risk from ordinary drink spiking.