SINGER and songwriter Kerry Blower is still traumatised after being served a glass of acid cleaning fluid instead of water in a village pub.

Mrs Blower, who lives in East Kennett where she runs a recording studio, said she is lucky she did not receive irreparable internal damage after she took a sip of the cleaning acid at the Crown Hotel in Aldbourne.

She has been told that if she had swallowed the Odex cleaning fluid instead of spitting it out it could have killed her.

Her Manchester-based lawyers are still negotiating with the pub's insurers over compensation.

Mrs Blower, 39, said she was speaking out to warn other pubs, hotels and restaurants to follow the instructions given with cleaning fluids and not to decant them into containers used for other purposes.

Mrs Blower had gone to the Aldbourne pub for a meal with her husband Tom and friends on the evening of July 11 and asked the waitress for a glass of water.

She said: "She packed the glass with ice cubes and this is probably what saved me from dying. Because it was packed with ice I could not take a big swallow, only a sip.

"I noticed it fizzing in the glass and thought it must be soda water. I took a sip and I noticed the fizzing was in my mouth and that it was burning.

"I just wanted this stuff out of my mouth so I spat it all over my dinner and Tom told me to get to the toilet quick. The manageress followed me into the toilet and I was trying to spit the stuff out of my mouth and wash it out with tap water. By the time I went back to the table my tongue was swollen."

The manageress, said Mrs Blower, produced the Odex advice sheet saying medical advice should be sought immediately. Mr Blower rushed her to Swindon's Great Western Hospital.

Mrs Blower said: "The assessment nurse and the doctor were both horrifed that I had actually taken the stuff into my mouth and nearly swallowed it.

"They told me at the hospital that I was an extremely lucky woman. If I had ingested any they would have had to give me emergency surgery."

Mrs Blower received severe burns to her mouth and tongue which developed into painful blisters that lasted for some weeks. She said: "I have permanent damage to my tongue. If I speak for too long or sing for a long period it aches and hurts."

After returning home from the hospital Mrs Blower was telephoned by the pub manageress, who she knew only as Vicky, who apologised and said she was investigating what had happened.

Some days later the owner, Tanya Ecclestone, telephoned to apologise and to explain that the Odex cleaning fluid had been put into a water jug to make it easier to dispense into the dishwasher.

Mrs Blower said: "I cannot get it out of my mind that it could have killed me. All the time I am thinking about it.

"I am only speaking out about it to warn all the other pubs and hotels out there not to make the same mistake.

"If I can save someone's life by speaking out then it will be well worth it."

The owners of the Crown, Mrs Ecclestone and her husband Geoffrey, declined to comment while the incident is being handled by their insurers.