[BIZPACREVIEW] A woman from Brooklyn says she thinks she was poisoned at the same Dominican Republic resort where three U.S. citizens died last month, according to the Daily News.In October of last year, Awilda Montes and her boyfriend were at the Luxury Bahia Principe Bouganville. She told the Daily News that she took a drink from a bottle of what she thought was soda that was in the minibar in her room. Fortunately, she swallowed just a bit before spitting it out. She found blood in the sink, smelled the bottle and quickly realized it was bleach, she said.
Until news came out about the three deaths at the same resort in May, she believed that her episode was unintentional and perhaps a mistake by a hotel maid.
"I thought the maid service, maybe to not carry the bleach bottle from room to room, would maybe put it into a smaller bottle," Montes told the Daily News. "Or maybe they were trying to take it home to clean their house."
"I honestly never imagined that somebody was trying to purposely do that until now, until watching the three deaths. Now I’m thinking had (the hotel) investigated this mystery, they would be alive."
Montes, 43, has to count herself fortunate that she did not swallow much of the liquid. "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," she said.
Seeing blood in the sink, she turned to her boyfriend and said, "’I think this is bleach.’ And he smelled the bottle and he said, ’It is,'" according to The News. She reportedly called the front desk, and she was brought to a medical clinic. Somewhere along the way, someone took the soda bottle from her, she said.
Hotel management offered her a free couples massage and free dinner in return for her signature on a non-disclosure agreement. In agony, she rejected the offer.
Medical records provided to the News indicated "a pain in the dorsal and lateral region of the tongue, accompanied with vomiting ... with a frequency of two occasions following the (ingestion) of a liquid approximately thirty minutes ago."