A COACH trip to Austria has left a Melksham woman fighting for her life in hospital after she collapsed with Legionnaire's Disease.

Felicity Lodge, 65, is one of three woman being treated at the same hospital after falling ill on the last day of her holiday, which had started on September 21. Her condition is said to be serious.

Neighbours of Mrs Lodge, who also went on the coach trip, said the outbreak had caused great worry among the holidaymakers.

Friends Bette and Tony Truman, also from Melksham, had to be checked by the French authorities, along with all the other passengers, in case they too had picked up the infection.

Mrs Truman, 67, said: "I'm on antibiotics for the next 10 days because I had a bit of a cough and they were worried about it."

She said Mrs Lodge's husband, Peter, had found his wife collapsed in the hotel bathroom.

She said: "Felicity had been ill all week and we just thought it was a cold at first. But then she deteriorated.

"Peter was checked and he hadn't got it. So he was very lucky. We ended up staying another day but we all just wanted to come home."

Mrs Truman is in daily contact with Mr Lodge, who said on Wednesday that doctors thought his wife had shown some signs of improvement but the two other women were still very ill.

All three women were among passengers on two separate trips heading

to Austria when they picked up the potentially fatal bug.

The other two women, from Christchurch, Dorset, who have not been named, are said to be in a critical condition in a hospital in Colmar in the Alsace region of France.

They set off from Britain on September 16.

Tour operator Wallace Arnold Holidays said investigations were now focusing on a hotel in Belgium where both parties are thought to have stayed early last week on route to the Austrian Alps.

A spokesman for Wallace Arnold confirmed the passengers were suffering from Legionnaire's Disease.

"All three passengers, from the Dorset and Wiltshire areas, are being treated in a hospital in the Alsace region of France where their conditions are described as very poorly.

"The matter is specifically being investigated by the French health authority, the body responsible for identifying the source and we are awaiting their findings.

"All relevant information has also been passed to the European Working Group for Legionella Infections, in London.

"In the meantime, as a precautionary measure, the company is not using any of the hotels that featured on the two tours involved, until the investigation is complete.

"There appears to be one common link to both tours - a hotel in Belgium, although since the investigation is still ongoing it would be inappropriate to speculate further at this stage.

"Wallace Arnold has two members of staff in France, monitoring the situation. All passengers on the two tours concerned have been made fully aware of the situation."

A Foreign Office spokesman said they had not been informed of the outbreak and would only have been involved if needed to help.