A self-described spiritual teacher and entrepreneur who applied the toxins of an Amazonian tree frog to burns in the skin of a New South Wales woman moments before she died did not know to call 000 in the case of emergencies, a coroner has heard.
Natasha Lechner died at the age of 39 in a shamanic “Kambo” ritual in Mullumbimby that went tragically wrong in 2019.
Among the substances used by Lechner was the mucus secreted from a frog scientists refer to as Phyllomedusa bicolor. The species also goes by the South American giant leaf frog and giant monkey frog, and causes those who absorb the mucus through the skin to vomit or purge.
In 2021, two-and-a-half years after Lechner’s death, Kambo was banned by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, but at the time it was relatively easy to obtain online.
Victoria Sinclair, who was the only other participant in what was intended to be a healing ceremony, appeared before a three-day inquest into Lechner’s death in Lismore, via video link from Bali on Tuesday morning.
Sinclair described herself to the counsel assisting the inquest, Peggy Dwyer, as an “educator and holistic practitioner”.
She told the inquest that the pair had known each other for about five years, and that Lechner had been her client on the three or four previous occasions at which Kambo was used prior to the 8 March 2019 ceremony.
Lechner’s father and two of her brothers were in the public gallery as Sinclair told the inquest that the ceremony began at around 10am on the day of the death.
She said Lechner had just completed a course in administering Kambo and it was she who was conducting the ceremony in her Mullumbimby flat.
“I wasn’t being brought in [in] my capacity as her practitioner that day,” Sinclair told the inquest. “It was more of a colleague actually.”
She described it as “a very big milestone in Natasha’s life”.
“It was almost like someone doing their advanced driving, she was talking me through the decisions for what she was doing that day and her rationale for them.”
Associate professor and expert toxicologist Darren Roberts told the inquest that Lechner acted upon expert medical advice, had quit smoking and was “very much engaged and focused on her health”.
“My interpretation is that she saw Kambo as complementary to mainstream medicine,” he said.
“She felt that there were benefits that she was having from that both in terms of her own health benefits but perhaps personal benefits of being able to care for other people.”
Lechner first applied the Kambo to her friend and former teacher after making three small burn marks using an incense candle to her left calf and one on her left ear, Sinclair said.
She told the inquest that she experienced a quick and strong reaction to the Kambo, including a cramping in the womb that she said was “not necessarily normal”, and purged within about 15 minutes.
She then administered the Kambo to Lechner.
Sinclair said she made five burns on Lechner.
“She felt faint quite quickly and she lay herself down in a kind of semi-recovery position,” Sinclair said.
“Then she sat up and grabbed my arm and just looked at me and said: ‘It’s not good’. She then fainted sitting up.”
Sinclair described Lechner murmuring, her lips turning blue, her hands twitching and her breathing becoming laboured.
She administered CPR but did not have a phone, nor know the number of emergency services.
It wasn’t until a flatmate returned home that an ambulance was called. Ambulance records show that first call was made at 11.16am, with an ambulance arriving five minutes later.
The hearing continues on Wednesday.
