OKLAHOMA CITY (KOCO) – A couples trip to Mexico turned into a nightmare for several Oklahoma college students after two young women suddenly became ill and one had to be hospitalized.
The women, Zara and Kaylie, are both in their early 20s. They were sitting at the bar of the Cancun resort when they suddenly collapsed, said Stephanie Snider, whose son was on the trip. His girlfriend, Zara, was the one who was hospitalized.
“The last thing they remember is asking for a glass of water,” Snider said. “Their heads dropped. They slumped on the counter. Zara started making jerky movements.”
The women’s families suspect that they may have been drugged.
Doctors thought Zara was having a seizure, so she was taken to the hospital on Friday night. After Zara did not improve after several days of treatment, the U.S. Embassy advised her family to return to the U.S. as soon as possible for further treatment.
“Her body is just so overloaded, her organs and everything. It’s going to take a while for her liver to detoxify that from her body,” Snider said.
Zara was airlifted to a hospital in Dallas, where family and friends hoped to get answers about her sudden illness. But after numerous medical tests, they still have no answers.
“We don’t have a toxicology report from Mexico. They said they did one, but we don’t have it,” Snider said. “We’ve all come to the realization that we’re probably not going to get any answers. We have to make do with what we have now.”
The family says they are left with thousands in medical bills and Zara is still in hospital.
“We spent over $50,000 in a desperate effort to get her back,” Snider said.
While Zara and Kaylie are recovering physically, their families say this is not the only battle the young women face.
“Kaylie is physically better, but emotionally she is not,” Snider said. “When something like this happens to you, it is the worst thing you can imagine.”
A GoFundMe campaign to cover costs has already raised more than $20,000, about half the goal. The families are also asking for prayers.
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