A 51-year-old Pennsylvania woman died while on vacation in the Dominican Republic in similar circumstances as the three Americans who were recently found dead there, her family said.
Yvette Monique Sport was staying at the Bahia Principe hotel with her fiance, Howard Taltoan, when she suddenly collapsed in June 2018, her sister, Felecia Nieves, said.
“She was 51 years of age, relatively healthy, no reason for her to go on vacation and die so suddenly,” Nieves told Fox 29.
Sport got a drink from the mini bar in her hotel room before going to bed and never waking up, her family said. Her cause of death was listed as heart attack.
Family claims woman died at same Dominican Republic resort where 3 found dead https://t.co/4pQ27X05dL
— FOX 29 (@FOX29philly) June 6, 2019
Nieves and Taltoan were thinking about Sport’s death after hearing of the recent deaths of Miranda Schaup-Werner, 41, Cynthia Day, 49, and Nathaniel Holmes, 63.
“It makes me question at this point is this cause of death even true,” Nieves said. “We were promised within three months that we would receive a toxicology report to this day, which is almost a year now we’ve got nothing.”
The U.S. State Department listed 13 American deaths in the Dominican Republic last year but Sport was not among them, a fact Nieves called “disturbing.”
Schaup-Werner was with her husband Daniel Werner at Bahia Principe in the Playa Nueva Romana resort on May 25 when she suddenly collapsed.
Officials say 41-one-year-old Miranda Schaup-Werner of Allentown was preparing to dine with her husband when she began to feel ill and died on May 25.https://t.co/5ILDWqBrx7
— CBS 21 News (@CBS21NEWS) June 6, 2019
“At one point, she was sitting there happily smiling and taking pictures and the next moment she was in acute pain and called out for Dan and she collapsed,” Jay McDonald, a spokesperson for Schaup-Werner’s family, told WPXI. Werner, a doctor, tried performing CPR but her heart stopped and she was soon declared dead.
The cause of death was said to be respiratory failure and pulmonary edema, which is caused by excess fluid in the lungs.
“That’s not something that we were aware of prior and we really want an independent medical review here in the States,” McDonald said.
“The bizarre issue of the same hotel and these things happening within days of each other and the complete unexpected nature of what happened to Miranda, we just want to understand this,” he added to WFMZ, noting that Schaup-Werner collapsed after having a drink from the minibar in her hotel room.
NEW: Maryland Couple Died of Respiratory Failure, Pulmonary Edema: Dominican Investigators. Cynthia Day & Nathaniel Holmes’ relatives don’t believe the D.R. autopsy report. They’ll have another autopsy conducted when the bodies return to the U.S. https://t.co/9WG8TMozVE
— Shomari Stone (@shomaristone) June 4, 2019
It was the same cause of death listed for Day and Holmes, who were engaged. They were found dead in their room at Bahia Principe on May 30.
Sonya Jackson, Day’s sister, said her family doesn’t believe that Day died from respiratory issues. She told NBC 4 that the family also plans on having another autopsy carried out on Day when the body is flown to the United States.
“The family of Cynthia Ann Day would like to thank the community for their condolences and support in the loss of their beloved daughter, mother, and sister,” family attorney Steven Bullock said in a statement.
“We are continuing to investigate the exact cause of death. The family is determined to find out what happened and why. At this time the cause of death remains a mystery. The various theories that have been reported have yet to be substantiated. Thank you.”
