In recent weeks, other Canadians have shared horror stories from the Dominican Republic. The newspaper presents the disturbing story of three of them.
He died after a fall from 4e floor in Punta Cana
Aged 21, young hockey player Brady Grasdal, originally from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, lost his life on December 16, after falling from the fourth floor at the Riu Republica hotel in Punta Cana.
To this day, the exact circumstances of his death remain unknown, deplores the bereaved family.
Family wants answers
According to his mother, Amber Grasdal, her son had spent the day enjoying the site and consuming alcohol. In the evening, he went to the establishment’s nightclub with his friend. They met other people there, with whom they spent some time.
“His friend went to the bathroom and when he came out, Brady was gone. He searched the complex for it and returned to the room, before falling asleep. He had a blackout”
– Amber Grassdal, mother of Brady Grasdal
PHOTO PROVIDED BY AMBER GRASDAL
According to Mme Grasdal, her son’s condition deteriorated rapidly once he was in the nightclub. “He sent me a video just 40 minutes before he fell and he was talking to me, he was holding his phone and everything was fine,” she said.
Then almost an hour later, in the early morning, the young man was found on the ground, after having fallen from a railing from the fourth floor, in a building far from the one where he was staying. He was taken to hospital unconscious, but was pronounced dead a few hours later.
- Listen to the interview with Sylvie Marcotte, mother of William Gareau, who died in Punta Cana, via QUB :
“In my opinion there was more than alcohol, we think he was drugged at the nightclub,” she says.
Saskatchewanian Brady Grasdal, 21, lost his life in unclear circumstances last December at the Riu Republica hotel in Punta Cana.
Photo provided by Amber Grasdal
Surveillance Videos
Thanks to steps taken with the Canadian Embassy, the family was able to receive two videos from the hotel’s surveillance cameras, where we see the young man lost and staggering, entering an elevator alone, then coming out. .
The family, however, requests the video where we see the young man fall, which the hotel management refuses. “In our opinion, there is something or someone on this video that makes them refuse to send it to us. It’s a nightmare every day,” she says.
To date, despite their numerous requests, the Grasdal family has not received any police, autopsy or toxicology report, which could allow them to better understand the circumstances of the tragic death of their son.
Their carrier, Sunwing, took no action to help them in this tragedy, deplores Mr. Grasdal.
He wanted to escape the “cartel”
Ontarian John Bearisto, aged 54, is also marked by his trip to the Bahia Principe Luxury Ambar hotel in October 2019.
The man says he woke up completely naked in the early morning, on the beach of the neighboring hotel, after experiencing what he describes as a paranoid psychosis.
The event occurred on the first night of his week-long trip, on the night of October 19 to 20, 2019. The Ontarian says he drank beer during the day, then martini cocktails at the lobbybefore going to the sports bar, around 8 p.m., where he drank beer.
John Bearisto, an Ontarian, told the Journal that he experienced an event similar to that experienced by William Gareau, in 2019, at Bahia Principe Ambar. Photo courtesy of John Bearisto
Courtesy of John Bearisto
In this bar, the same one that William Gareau frequented last January, it was a waiter who brought him his glasses of draft beer to his table, he relates. “I think that’s when someone put something in my drink,” he believes, without being able to say what type of drug he could have ingested.
Hunted by a drug cartel
Around 9 p.m., he returned to his room with his partner. But the night was not easy for Mr. Bearisto: around 3 a.m., he woke up with a start, believing he was being chased by a “cartel”.
He then came out of his room, panicked and completely naked, running at full speed to the neighboring complex, which was then under construction. “I remember the grass being wet, I remember slipping and falling. I tried to hide and save myself [des cartels] under the palapas. I then found a blanket to cover myself,” he relates, speaking of a “very traumatic” episode.
A security guard then found him lying on the ground, before taking him back to his room, the door of which was wide open and where his partner was still sleeping.
“The next day I was back to myself, but I was so embarrassed. I had never experienced anything like this. It’s scary,” he confides.
Found asleep in the sand and flowers
Originally from Saguenay, Johanne Gervais, aged 66, has very bitter memories of her trip to the Occidental Punta Cana hotel, in March 2020, where she believes she was drugged without her knowledge, after having consumed only one single glass.
The sixty-year-old arrived alone in mid-March, a day before her friend, who was leaving from Montreal. She says she went to the buffet for dinner, before going to see the show presented by the hotel later in the evening.
She only ordered one cocktail, at the bar, after her meal. Previously, Mme Gervais claims to have only drank water. “The waiter prepared the glass and had his back to him, I didn’t see him do it,” she recalls.
Then the woman went to sit down to watch the show, but had no memory of the rest of the evening. She woke up in her room the next morning, confused, with her hair and face “full of sand.”
Sexagenarian Johanne Gervais, during a cruise in the Caribbean, in January 2022.
Photo provided by Johanne Gervais
Lying under the stairs
“It was a Quebec couple who found me sleeping, in the sand and the flowers, under the stairs of the building, where my room was,” she says, still shaken by this “traumatic” event. “.
“I had traveled with them in the morning on the plane. The woman, a nurse, recognized my pink backpack and it was when they saw my bag through the patio door that they knew it was my room,” says M.me Gervais.
Even though her room access card was no longer in her bag, she says it was not stolen.
“It’s scary, I will never travel alone again, even just for a day,” she confides.
“There’s nothing I haven’t done!”
The day after the events, now accompanied by her friend, Mme Gervais was very surprised by what employees told her. “We laughed and told me that I had gone on stage to do a show,” she says, shaken.
“I don’t know at all how or why I went there, I’m a very shy and introverted person, but I found myself on the stage and it seemed like I was dancing,” she says.
Cameras “off”
Mme Gervais says he immediately asked Sunwing, which was his carrier, to change hotels, which he was refused.
She also asked to see the surveillance cameras, to which a director of the establishment allegedly told her that they were not working, at the time she believed she had been drugged.
Upon her return to Quebec, the woman claims to have consulted her doctor and performed a battery of tests, all of which turned out to be negative. The presence of drugs like GHB is detectable within 12 hours of consumption.
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