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My 8-Year-Old Daughter Almost Died At A Mexico Resort Last Summer. The Hotel Said It Was Heat Exhaustion. The American Hospital Said It Was Carbon Monoxide.
"If you're taking your kids to a Caribbean or Mexican resort this year — please read every word before you book."
— Rebecca H., Mother
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Why I'm Writing This
My name is Rebecca. I'm a 39-year-old marketing director from Phoenix.
What happened to my daughter at a luxury resort in Tulum, Mexico, last August is something I cannot keep to myself.
My daughter Lily almost died on the fourth day of our family vacation. The resort told us she had heat exhaustion and offered her a free dessert. The American hospital we flew her to ten hours later told us she had carbon monoxide poisoning so severe she was four hours from permanent brain damage.
I am writing this in the hope that another American mother reads it before she packs her family for a Caribbean or Mexican resort vacation.
The Trip We Saved Up For
We booked the trip in February for our July anniversary.
A four-bedroom luxury villa at a beachfront resort in Tulum. All-inclusive. Private pool. The kind of vacation we'd been talking about for years. My husband had received a bonus and we wanted to spend it on memories with the kids..
We have three children. Sophia is 12. Jacob is 10. Lily is 8.
The villa was beautiful. White stone. Infinity pool. Private gas grill. Two bathrooms with luxurious gas-heated rain showers.
I noticed when we checked in that the house had several gas appliances. The kitchen had a gas range. The pool had a gas heater in the equipment room. The bathrooms had wall-mounted gas water heaters above the showers..
I did not notice that there was no CO detector anywhere in the villa.
I did not even think to look.
That oversight almost killed my daughter.
The Symptoms We Ignored
Day one was perfect. The kids swam. We had dinner at the resort restaurant. We went to bed early because of the travel.
Day three, all three kids had headaches. Jacob said his stomach hurt. I figured it was the change in food. We had simpler meals that day.
Day four, things got serious.
Lily was lethargic. She wouldn't eat breakfast. She was unsteady on her feet when she walked to the pool. By 10 AM she was crying about her head.
I took her to the resort medical clinic. The doctor on staff did a basic exam. He told me Lily had heat exhaustion and dehydration. He recommended electrolyte drinks and rest.
I asked if it could be something else. He laughed. Told me Americans are not used to the heat. Recommended we stay inside the air-conditioned villa for the rest of the day.
We went back to the villa.
Lily fell asleep on the couch in the living room.
By 4 PM, I could not wake her up.
What Happened Next
I am going to share what happened next because I want you to understand what is at stake when American families travel abroad.
I tried to wake Lily for ten minutes. She was breathing. She was unresponsive.
I called my husband from the pool. He came running. We tried together. She would not wake up.
The resort doctor was 20 minutes away. I called the front desk. They told me he would come "as soon as possible."
I told my husband we needed to get her to a real hospital.
We called Global Rescue, the medical evacuation service we had used for travel insurance. The operator immediately recommended we go to the American hospital in Cancun, two hours away.
Sophia and Jacob were also showing symptoms by this point. Both had headaches. Sophia was nauseous. Jacob was uncoordinated walking to the car.
We loaded all three kids and ourselves into a taxi. My husband sat in the front seat trying to figure out which hospital to go to. I sat in the back holding Lily, who would occasionally moan but did not wake up.
We arrived at the American hospital in Cancun at 7:45 PM.
The triage nurse took one look at Lily and called for the on-call physician immediately.
By 8:15 PM, Lily was on hyperbaric oxygen treatment.
By 9:00 PM, the doctor came out to talk to us.
He told us Lily had carbon monoxide poisoning. Her carboxyhemoglobin level was 32 percent. He told me that anything above 25 percent in a child can cause permanent neurological damage. Anything above 40 percent can cause death.
He told me Lily was approximately four hours from permanent brain damage when we arrived.
He asked us where we had been staying.
We told him.
He told us our other children needed to be tested immediately. Sophia tested at 18 percent carboxyhemoglobin. Jacob tested at 22 percent.
All three of our children had been chronically poisoned for the four days of our vacation.
The source was a malfunctioning gas appliance somewhere in the villa we had been told was safe.
The Number That Made Me Sit On The Kitchen Floor
After Lily was stable, my husband flew back to Tulum to retrieve our belongings.He hired an independent CO inspector to walk through the villa with him.
The inspector found three sources.
The wall-mounted gas water heater in our bathroom had a corroded vent. CO was leaking into the bathroom every time anyone showered. Each shower in the morning was depositing dangerous CO into our bedroom and the connected hallway.
The gas pool heater had a cracked heat exchanger. CO was venting into the pool deck area. We had eaten breakfast and lunch by the pool every day.
The gas range in the kitchen had a misadjusted burner that was producing CO when used.
The villa had no CO detector anywhere.
The resort property had no CO detection requirement for villas.
The Mexican host country has no national requirement for CO detectors in vacation rentals or hotels.
We had been staying in a villa that the resort knew or should have known was dangerous, with no detection equipment, in a country with no requirement to install detection equipment.
We paid $1,200 per night for that experience.
The resort's only response to us was to refund the four nights we had paid for.
What I Have Learned Since
I have spent the months since researching what happened to us.
I have learned that the Tulum case is not unique. American tourists die regularly at Mexican and Caribbean resorts from CO poisoning that is misdiagnosed as heat exhaustion, food poisoning, or "natural causes."
The CDC has issued travel advisories about CO at international resorts. The State Department has acknowledged the pattern. American media has covered specific cases.
But the resorts are not required to install detectors. The host countries are not required to enforce safety standards. The American tour operators are not required to disclose risks.
If you book a Caribbean or Mexican resort vacation, you are taking on a CO risk that is not disclosed in any way you can see during the booking process.
I have learned that residential CO detectors — even when present in foreign hotels — are designed to UL 2034 standards that allow them to ignore concentrations below 30 PPM and to wait up to 240 minutes before alarming at 70 PPM.
The CO levels that almost killed Lily were in the range of 60 to 80 PPM in our bedroom over multiple days.
A standard residential detector would never have alarmed at those levels in time to save her.
The Detector I Travel With Now
After Lily recovered, I bought a portable CO detector for every member of my family who travels.
The unit I use is called Haven. It alarms at 10 PPM, not 70. It shows the actual concentration on a screen. It uses an electrochemical sensor — the same kind professional CO inspectors use.
It is portable. Battery-powered. It fits in carry-on luggage.
When my family travels now, the first thing I do when we check in is set the Haven detector on the nightstand and let it run for 30 minutes.
If the screen shows 0, the room is safe.
If it shows anything else, we do not stay in the room.
We have changed rooms once at a Florida resort over an elevated reading. The hotel staff thought I was crazy. I showed them the number. They moved us. I do not know whether the original room would have hurt my family. I do not need to know.
The Haven told me to leave. I left.
That is the standard our family lives by now.
The Offer
Right now Haven is offering their best pricing:
2-Pack — $139 ($69.50 each) For your carry-on and your spouse's. Two units, every international trip.
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8-Pack — $379 ($47.38 each) You and the families that travel with you. Your home, your in-laws' vacation rental, your sister's family who travels too. Eight zones, one decision.
Every order includes:
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✓ Real-time PPM display + electrochemical sensor (10 PPM early warning)
Two Futures
If you are planning a Caribbean or Mexican resort vacation this year, please understand something.
The resort you booked may have inadequate CO detection. The villa you booked almost certainly does. The host country may not require detectors. The room itself may have nothing functioning.
You cannot trust the property to protect your children.
You must protect your children yourself.
Future One: Trust the resort. Hope the gas water heater in your villa's bathroom is properly vented. Hope the pool heater is maintained. Hope the kitchen range was installed correctly. Hope your kids are not the next family the resort doctor diagnoses with heat exhaustion four hours before they would have suffered permanent brain damage.
Future Two: Order Haven before your next trip. Pack one in your carry-on. Set it up the moment you check in. Run it for 30 minutes. If the screen stays at zero, you have actual confirmation. If it doesn't, you leave the room before any of your kids take a shower.
Lily almost couldn't.
She is fine. She is starting fourth grade with no apparent permanent damage.
But she was four hours from permanent brain damage when we got her to the American hospital.
Four hours.
You still can.
Steadfast Clarity Is Different
"After Rebecca's article I bought four Havens before our Cancun trip. Reading 11 PPM in the bedroom of our resort villa within 20 minutes of check-in. We changed properties. New villa: zero. My kids have no idea how close we came. Get the monitor."*
— Megan F., Colorado
""Riviera Maya vacation. Haven caught 9 PPM in the kitchen of our rental villa on day one. Host kept saying 'it must be calibrated wrong.' We left and got a hotel. The hotel showed zero. Get the monitor."*
— Trevor B., Washington
"Bought Havens for me, my sister, my mother. Three traveling families. My sister's unit alarmed at 7 PPM in a Costa Rica resort last winter. They moved rooms. Don't let your kids be the family at the American hospital in Cancun."*
— Tina S., Oregon
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If you aren’t taking Alpha BRAIN®, you are operating at a disadvantage.
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