The family of a British teenager killed in a motorbike crash in Vietnam is enduring a second gap-year tragedy, it has emerged. Orla Wates, 19, from London, died after an accident on the Ha Giang Loop, a mountain road. She was rushed to hospital but doctors could not save her. Her liver, kidneys and corneas were donated to patients at the hospital.
Orla's death bears chilling similarities to that of her cousin William Wates, who was also 19 when he was killed while travelling in Honduras in August 1996. William was shot dead in a remote mountainous region near the Nicaraguan border, bound hand and foot, with five gunshot wounds to the heart, head and back. Travellers' cheques, credit cards and cash were stolen.
Orla's parents, Andy, 56, and Henrietta Wates, 53, described her as 'beautiful, independent and very funny, with a sharp wit'. Andy is a director of the £2.4billion construction firm Wates. The family is estimated to be worth £597million.
William, a pupil at Radley College, was on a gap year before studying Ancient History at Nottingham University. He had been travelling for four months, including two months volunteering in Ecuador. His father, Andrew, then chairman of Wates Leisure, concealed the news from hundreds of staff at a garden party at his Surrey estate before travelling to Honduras to bring his son's body home.
In William's memory, the family established the William Wates Memorial Trust, which has raised millions of pounds for disadvantaged children.
