A two-year-old British girl was in intensive care in a Cypriot hospital last night after she was mistakenly served orange squash mixed with dishwasher detergent at a luxury hotel.

Doctors said that Annabelle Rhodes was in a serious but stable condition after she was taken off a ventilator yesterday afternoon and breathing normally for the first time in four days.

But they feared that she could suffer long-term physical damage from drinking the potentially lethal liquid. Annabelle suffered burns to her mouth, throat and upper respiratory organs.

Her parents, Mark and Judith Rhodes, from Bayswater, West London, have been at the toddler’s bedside since she was taken to hospital on Saturday evening. They said yesterday that Annabelle was “making progress”.

The mistake occurred on Saturday evening when Mr Rhodes, 55, ordered a watered-down orange squash for his daughter from a 43-year-old barman, police said. When she started screaming in pain, Mr Rhodes tasted the drink and also had to receive hospital treatment.

It is understood the detergent had been poured into a plastic bottle and the clear, odourless solution was mistaken for water by unsuspecting hotel employees.

“It appears the barman used a container which he thought contained water but was in fact dishwasher detergent,” a police spokeswoman said. “We are treating this as an accident as the person wasn’t to know there was a different liquid in the plastic water bottle.”

The liquid consumed was sent to a state laboratory for testing. Local media said it was nitric acid, which is highly corrosive and can cause toxic burns.

A doctor treating the child at the Makarios hospital in Nicosia said: “Her parents are obviously quite stressed but they’re trying to be as cool as they can after this very unfortunate event.”

Police were questioning employees at the four-star Curium Palace Hotel in the southern coastal resort of Limassol, where the incident took place.

Mr Rhodes was expected to file a complaint and to sue the hotel, state radio reports said. No arrests had been made by last night. A police spokeswoman said: “The offence that is being investigated so far is a reckless and negligent act which carries a maximum penalty of two years’ imprisonment.”

Panicos Yiallouras, a paediatric pulmonologist, said that Annabelle had been on a ventilator to secure her airway “because she had a terrible obstruction after the ingestion of this chemical substance at the hotel and she couldn’t breathe”.

He told The Times: “We had to look down with a scope to see the voice box. There’s still some swelling there, but not as much as it was on the first day.”

There was a possibility of long-term damage. “These chemical substances can cause strictures, they can cause granulomas in abnormal tissue where the normal tissue has been eroded.”

Andreas Hadjidemetriou, another doctor treating the toddler, said: “We had her on a ventilator for 48 hours. Today we weaned her off it.

“She appears to be doing better. If the child continues breathing on her own, that is a big step.”

The newly refurbished Curium Palace Hotel in central Limassol describes itself as one of the town’s “oldest establishments” which “carries years of colonial history, aristocratic flairs and local culture”. Its website adds: “The tranquillity of the gardens offers a perfect setting for holidaymakers seeking relaxation.”

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