In January 2018, Doug Hand, 40, and his wife Susie Lauterborn, 38, were staying at the Grand Bahia Príncipe La Romana when, he said in a phone interview, they got sick with fevers, nausea, cold sweats, diarrhea and fatigue.
Mr. Hand said that he didn’t drink alcohol on the trip, but he did notice a “moldy, mildewy smell like the A.C. or filter hadn’t been cleaned.”
When Mr. Hand told an employee in the hotel’s lobby that his wife was sick, the employee gave him directions to a doctor, but seemed more focused on ensuring the couple attended a meeting about buying time shares, Mr. Hand said.
Kaylynn Knull, 29, and Tom Schwander, 33, are suing the resort chain for $1 million, their lawyer told The Times, because the Colorado-based couple became violently ill during their stay at the Grand Bahia Príncipe La Romana last summer. Ms. Knull got a persistent headache and was sweating and drooling profusely, the lawyer, David Columna, said. She also had blurry vision, nausea and diarrhea, she told CNN, and family doctors determined the couple had been exposed to organophosphates, a class of insecticides.
“The hotel did nothing,” said Mr. Columna, who is representing Ms. Knull and Mr. Schwander in the Dominican Republic. The couple, he said, “spent the night inhaling the chemical and they are still having side effects of the intoxication and the hotel hasn’t given us any idea of what happened.”
Elisabeth Malkin contributed reporting from Mexico City.