Three more tourists report falling mysteriously and 'intensely' ill while holidaying in the Dominican Republic
Three more people have reportedly fallen violently and mysteriously ill on a vacation to the Dominican Republic. A couple from Atlanta, named Vanessa McNelley-Neal and her husband James said that they had a "very intense" illness while holidaying at the island. A tourist from Plant City, Florida, Jerry Martin, also alleged that he had fallen ill at Caribe Club Princess Beach Resort & Spa in Punta Cana last month.
The couple told Alive 11 that they had symptoms that just wouldn't go away. "We had a good couple of days and then started feeling ill," Vanessa said, talking about a trip they took to the islands in November. "Started having really bad abdominal cramps. Thought it was some kind of a GI [gastrointestinal] issue. I had a light headache," she said. "I had food poisoning years ago in Tahiti so I know what that feels like and it did not feel like that," Vanessa said. "The stomach cramping was very different. It was very intense. It was not the normal stomach pains.”
"Anything we took didn’t really help," Vanessa added. James too had similar problems. "I had a heavy headache that just lasted and lasted," he said. "I took everything and nothing phased it.”
After their return to Puerto Rico, they visited a doctor and in spite of undergoing tests, even for parasites, they couldn't figure it out.
Jerry Martin too experienced pain in his abdomen, he told Fox 13. "Fire in the bottom of my stomach. Pain, excruciating pain,” Martin recalled. “We were down at the pool when it hit, and I had to go up and just lay down and hold my stomach. It was on fire," he said. He further added that he spent his trip in the bathroom and that he feared for his health. He advised others to not visit the popular vacation spot. "Don’t go," he said. "Just don’t go."
Recently a large number of tourists have come forward with their awful experiences in the vacation spot and there have been a number of deaths in the country as well. The FBI is investigating into the three deaths, all of which occurred at the same property, Bahia Principe resort in La Romana and its sister property, Luxury Bahia Principe Bouganville.
A Staten Island woman named Leyla Cox, of New Brighton, became the latest tourist to die under mysterious circumstances. She died on June 10, just one day after celebrating her 53rd birthday. William Cox, her son said that the US Embassy officials told him his mother’s death had been ruled a heart attack following an autopsy, but because of the string of deaths happening there, they had reportedly said that they had their suspicions.