NY woman says she vomitted blood after drinking soda at Dominican Republic resort where three Americans died recently
A Dominican Republic resort where three American guests died last month has come under fire once again after it came to light a Brooklyn woman was left violently ill and spewing blood after consuming a minibar soda at the establishment last year. The resort allegedly offered her a couple's massage to keep mum about the incident.
In a conversation with the New York Post, 43-year-old Awilda Montes said in October 2018 she and her then-boyfriend checked into a luxury room at the Grand Bahia Principe resort in La Romana, before she downed a soda that tasted like bleach. She said despite the claims of resort staff, it wasn't an "accident".
According to her, she went to a stocked minibar soon after checking into her luxury room and grabbed a bottle of soda. As it was sealed tight, she asked her boyfriend to open it for her.
“When I took a swig of it, I swallowed a tiny bit of it, and when I held it there I realized it was tingling in my mouth and then it started burning,” she said. “I ran to the bathroom sink and spit it out and it was all blood.”
She complained to her boyfriend before they called the front desk.
“My tongue was bleeding and my mucous was all blood,” Montes said, adding that the hotel sent "a lot of people to diffuse the situation."
“They were very fast to take the bottle away from me,” she recalled.
The staff immediately summoned a hotel medic, who put Montes on IV fluids. The couple then returned to their room, where staffers told them the lethal soda was probably an "accidental mix-up."
Later on, Montes received a message from the hotel offering her an apology gift, but at the cost of keeping her mouth shut.
“They tried to get me to sign a disclaimer — dinner on the beach, a couples massage, or two free nights’ stay — I absolutely refused to sign it,” she said.
While at first she believed the hotel's excuse that it was just an "accidental mixup", now she has doubts.
“Now I’m wondering if it was on purpose, by a disgruntled employee,” Montes said.
“There are times you’re on vacation and you’re lying out on the beach and you ask workers to bring you something,” she continued. “There’s a lot of poor people working in this country, and they’re watching people day in day out who are enjoying their lives and don’t enjoy their own.”
The harrowing ordeal has left Montes with zero taste buds, although she's grateful to have escaped alive.
According to her, the hotel had offered to probe the incident but they never reported what came of it.
“I want them to know that they could have done something to prevent this because they’ve known this since my incident back in October and they should be held accountable,” Montes said.
Her sister has reached out to the family of Miranda Schaup-Werner, 41, who reportedly died of heart attack at the resort on May 25.
Five days later, an engaged couple from Maryland - Nathaniel Holmes, 63, and Cynthia Ann Day, 49 - were found dead in their room after suffering respiratory failure and pulmonary edema.