An Australian tourist, who was admitted to a Pago Pago hospital with a mystery illness, died in Brisbane after he was medevacked from American Samoa. 

Dave Crocos, an Australian national from Perth in Western Australia, was on a cruise ship with his wife from Los Angeles and Sydney two weeks ago but suddenly fell ill with doctors onboard unable to make a diagnosis.

Consequently, he was admitted to the LBJ Tropical Medicine Centre in Pago Pago, American Samoa which was the nearest land hospital. Australian media reports said the doctors at the hospital were also unable to determine the cause of his illness, triggering an international medevac operation from the U.S. territory.

According to 7News, a medevac flight from Pago Pago on Saturday 4 November took nine hours with refuelling stops in Fiji and Noumea in the French territory of New Caledonia before the plane landed in Brisbane. 

“Time’s against us,” his son Mathew Bierberg told 7NEWS.com.au last week. “My mum and sister are with him in the hospital, sleeping on the floor. We don’t know if he’s going to survive.”

It was reported that Crocos, who was a retired land surveyor, died Wednesday last week after spending five days in hospital in critical condition following his medevac.

He was reportedly surrounded by loved ones at a hospital in Brisbane when he took his last breath on Wednesday evening last week.

When he was admitted to the Pago Pago hospital, 7News reported that the local doctors thought it was a bladder issue that made the Australian abruptly ill while on the cruise ship but they were not entirely sure.