KEY POINTS:
When a dazed Jayson Basson awoke on a cold morning at a Raglan motor camp last September, he knew something was wrong.
There was pain in his right arm and on the right side of his body. His face was swollen and he could not swallow without his tongue getting stuck.
Nearby lay his two friends, their bodies lifeless.
As he was pulled out of the cabin, Mr Basson said to one of his rescuers: "I am an idiot. I shouldn't have taken the barbecue inside."
Coroner Gordon Matenga yesterday released his findings into the deaths of Martin Janse Van Rensburg and Derek Hamilton, who accidentally died of carbon monoxide poisoning after a portable charcoal barbecue was taken into their cabin for warmth at the Ruapuke motor camp.
Mr Matenga said Mr Basson had taken the barbecue into the cabin despite a warning clearly emblazoned on the barbecue fuel that carbon monoxide was odourless and lethal.
The coroner said publication of the circumstances of the case through the media should serve as "sufficient and further warning to campers" rather than his making any recommendations.
