POISONED IN PARADISE
Bleach-filled soda from minibar left me sick at D.R. resort chain — where 3 other tourists mysteriously died
A friend’s phone call about the shocking deaths of three tourists at a Dominican Republic resort left Awilda Montes seriously spooked about her own sickening experience at the same Caribbean getaway.
Montes, 43, of Brooklyn, told the Daily News that she was left with chemical burns in her mouth and vomited blood after a bleach-filled soda bottle ruined her romantic getaway last October.
While Montes initially believed the terrifying incident was an accident, she now wonders if there was something more menacing behind the tainted soda stocked in her room’s minibar at the Luxury Bahia Principe Bouganville — where a Pennsylvania tourist died last month in strikingly similar fashion.
And a Maryland couple was found dead inside their room at the sister resort adjacent to the hotel where Montes grabbed the supposed 7Up that left her violently ill.
“I honestly never imagined that somebody was trying to purposely do that until now, until watching the three deaths,” Montes told The News Friday. “Now I’m thinking had [the hotel] investigated this mystery, they would be alive … It just breaks my heart that people actually died.”
Montes and her thenboyfriend shared a few drinks at the bar when they arrived, she said, before heading up to their room. She grabbed a soda bottle from the minibar and took a big sip, only to find herself instantly nauseated.
“I noticed there was no fizz in it but I just figured it was Dominican soda, it was kind of flat. So I took a swig …. and luckily I kind of held it in my mouth a bit and I felt it burn. I swallowed a bit … [then] ran into the bathroom and spit in the sink,” the Park Slope resident said.
According to Montes, hotel management offered her a free couples massage and dinner on the house in return for her signature on a nondisclosure agreement — a deal that she rejected after the incident that left her in agony.
“I was miserable,” she said. “I was vomiting. I had stomach pains. The chemical burns were all over. I still don’t have sensation in my tongue.”
Montes didn’t make the connection between the recent fatalities and her own health scare until her friend called from Los Angeles last month.
Montes produced three pages of medical records from the local clinic that treated her after she took a swallow from the bottle of clear liquid. She was at the hotel with her now exboyfriend to mark their first anniversary, and says the scary experience doomed their romance.
The company that runs the two hotels issued a statement Friday decrying the “the dissemination of false information” regarding the deaths on their properties.
“We reiterate our firm commitment to collaborating completely with the authorities and hope for a prompt resolution of their inquiries and actions, and will not be making any further statements that may interfere with them,” said the statement from Bahia Principe Hotels & Resorts.
Emails and messages to the resorts on Friday were not returned.