Pennsylvania woman died at same Dominican hotel five days before Maryland couple in similar circumstances

[TheComputerGroup]

Teen tourist falls into coma on Dominican Republic trip: report




A teenage girl from Argentina has gone into a coma while vacationing in the Dominican Republic, with doctors pointing to a life-threatening diabetic condition — even though her family says she has no history of diabetes.

Candela Saccone, 15, had been scheduled to return home from Punta Cana on June 19 after traveling there earlier in the week, but she reportedly got sick that morning.

Her mother, Natalia Knetch, told CNN’s Spanish-language news channel that she rushed the teen — who was displaying symptoms of dizziness, dehydration and vomiting — to a local medical center, where doctors diagnosed her with diabetic cetoacidosis.

The condition is described online by the Mayo Clinic as a “serious complication of diabetes that occurs when your body produces high levels of blood acids called ketones.” It normally develops “when your body can’t produce enough insulin,” the clinic says.

Candela was reportedly transported from Punta Cana to the General Hospital of the Plaza de la Salud in Santo Domingo — with Argentine officials claiming that the initial medical center “did not have sufficient equipment to treat her.” It’s unclear when she went into the coma, only that the teen was still unconscious and in critical condition on Tuesday, yet stable and showing signs of improvement, according to CNN.

The Argentine foreign ministry confirmed the details of Candela’s situation with the network on Monday. Her mother said Candela had suddenly gotten sick the night before their departure. She reportedly lost her appetite and was suffering from extreme discomfort in her throat — to the point where she couldn’t swallow, her mom said.

The Dominican Minister of Health visited with Candela’s family on Monday and told CNN that she was “under control in a high-quality hospital center.”

The teen’s hospitalization couldn’t have come at a worse time for the DR, which has seen a disturbing trend of tourist deaths and illnesses being reported recently. Health minister Rafael Sánchez Cárdenas insists the cases are unrelated.

“What do we have here? Tourists who arrive with preexisting conditions and die in this country as they do in all countries,” Cárdenas told CBS News on Monday through a translator.

The FBI is looking into whether any of the reported deaths are linked. Agents have been running toxicology tests on resort minibars to see if tainted alcohol is possibly to blame. They’ve honed in on at least three cases — all of which involved tourists dying at the popular Bahia Principe hotel chain.

So far, at least 11 people have died in the past year while vacationing in the DR. Dozens more have gotten sick.





https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost...o-coma-on-dominican-republic-trip-report/amp/

 

[Doug]

This shithole country will be Haiti, soon ! Make the whole island of Hispanola a quaranteed zone

 

[TheComputerGroup]

Colorado man visiting Dominican Republic dies, removed from flight home after falling ill




The family of a Denver man who was visiting the Dominican Republic with his daughter says he has died in a local hospital after he became critically ill this week.

Khalid Adkins, who was staying in Punta Cana, tried to return home Tuesday, relatives told a Colorado Fox affiliate, but the crew on the flight removed him after seeing how ill he was.

“We found out this morning that he passed away last night! I’m at a loss for words, we have no explanation of what happened, all they will say is he got sick,” the family wrote Wednesday on a GoFundMe page they set up to raise funds to rush his body's return to the United States.

The U.S. State Department confirmed Adkins' death to Fox News Thursday.

Many details were unclear Thursday morning, including whether the father and daughter had stayed at a resort and when symptoms first developed.

Adkins' death comes as the FBI is investigating the deaths of at least three U.S. tourists who died within five days in May in their rooms at the Bahia Principe resort complex in La Romana.

The three—including a Maryland couple found dead in their room —are part of a rash of U.S. tourists whose deaths in the past year have been made public by relatives who say they have doubts about the determination by Dominican authorities that they perished due to natural causes.

The relatives have told reporters similar stories of being stonewalled by authorities and resort staff there when they sought information about the tourists’ deaths.

In most of the deaths, a heart attack was listed as the cause of death.

Several of the tourists fell ill after consuming a beverage from the room minibar, prompting Dominican authorities to conduct tests of the minibars, but also the resort food, pool, air conditioning, and vents, among other things.

Many tourists have reached out to the media with accounts of falling suddenly ill after having a drink or upon being exposed to smells that seemed to come from insecticides or cleaning substances.

A Colorado couple, who say they became seriously ill at a Bahia Principe resort last year after being exposed to a strong smell in their room, has filed a lawsuit claiming they were poisoned.

Dominican officials told Fox News their tests for toxins or other elements at the resorts have come back negative.

They maintain the deaths are not mysterious and are, instead, rooted in pre-existing medical conditions. They stress their country is safe for tourists. The Dominican Republic hosts some 6 million tourists a year, of which more than 2 million are from the U.S.





https://www.foxnews.com/world/color...ic-removed-from-flight-home-after-falling-ill

 

[MattyMatt]

They stress their country is safe for tourists. The Dominican Republic hosts some 6 million tourists a year, of which more than 2 million are from the U.S

https://www.foxnews.com/world/color...ic-removed-from-flight-home-after-falling-ill

Are other tourist from around the World dying too? Don't remember seeing a report, and if so, how many, since they double the amount of US tourist yearly in the Dominican...

 

[TheFalls]

DR bookings down 75%!

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019...e-dominican-republic-tourism-bookings-down-75

And Delta is offering free transfers or refunds for flights there...

 

[TheComputerGroup]

Newlywed’s illness on Dominican Republic honeymoon ‘spiraled’ into years-long ordeal




A Virginia woman who fell sick on her honeymoon to the Dominican Republic says the undiagnosable illness upended her life for years — leading to nonstop vomiting episodes, countless hospital stays and the loss of her job.

For more than three years, Carrie Clark never went more than a couple of weeks without being hospitalized following her return from the Excellence Resort in Punta Cana, she told The Post.

Clark, then 31, checked into the all-inclusive resort in October 2011 with her husband, Tom, for a 10-day vacation.

During the trip, the couple enjoyed drinks from the resort’s poolside bar and went on various off-site excursions, such as snorkeling and zip lining, where alcohol was also available.

“Everything was great,” Clark told The Post in a Tuesday interview. “On my second to last day, I started to feel sick. I couldn’t eat, anything I tried to eat would make me throw up. I would get uncomfortable stomach pains.”

Clark said she assumed she “ate something weird” or came down with a virus. But after she flew home, the illness “spiraled” into a nightmare that wreaked havoc on her newlywed bliss.

“It progressively got worse within a week of returning,” Clark said. “I couldn’t stop throwing up. The episodes got increasingly worse and the vomiting wouldn’t stop.”

The stomach pain was “indescribable” and like nothing she’s ever experienced.

“It was a pain that was gutwrenching,” Clark said. “I would always try to explain it to the doctors.”

Doctors ran countless tests on the newlywed but couldn’t get to the bottom of the mystery ailment. They pursued several possible diagnoses, including removing her gallbladder, but the symptoms would always return.

“The doctors at one point were baffled,” Clark said. “They couldn’t figure out what was going on.”

Clark, who was then living in Pennsylvania, would spend long stints in the hospital because she wouldn’t be able to get her vomiting under control. On some occasions, she would be discharged for an hour before the vomiting would return.

“It would be this ongoing cycle,” she said. “I would go away and get it under control and then I’d end up in the hospital.”

Meanwhile, Clark was still trying to navigate her new marriage. “We had just gotten married and it was a really hard way to start off a marriage,” she said. “We were both scared.”

For the first seven months, Clark also tried to maintain her job at a nonprofit for autism services. “I was in and out of the hospital. I eventually lost my job because I couldn’t work,” she said.

Her health hadn’t improved by the fall of 2013 when she decided to relocate with her husband to her parent’s home in Virginia. Their medical bills had mounted despite them still having “no definite answers.”

It wasn’t until more than three years after that her health took a positive turn. In February 2015, Clark decided she no longer wanted to continue her medications or the endless cycle of hospital visits.

“It was gone as quickly as it had come,” Clark said. “For many months, we had lived in fear of it returning at any time.”

Her “dark years” were over when reports began coming out of the Dominican Republic of tourists suffering bizarre — and sometimes fatal — illnesses at various inclusive resorts.

There have been at least 12 American tourist deaths in recent months on the Caribbean island, including a Staten Island mom at the same resort. Leyla Cox, 53, succumbed to a heart attack on June 10 at the Excellence Resort in Punta Cana.

“I wasn’t at first sure it could be associated but the more things started coming out … I was like well maybe I need to wrap my head around what is going on there,” she said.

A rep for the hotel didn’t immediately respond to comment on Clark’s stay.

Clark said she always felt that her illness was linked to her honeymoon — and now seeing the reports, she says she wished she would’ve pressed the resort for more information.

“It makes me feel almost not as crazy as I did during that period of time,” she said. “It almost helps in a way. It brings a little closure.”





https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost...oneymoon-spiraled-into-years-long-ordeal/amp/