Women be warned - drink spiking incident
Apr 23, 2024 Megan D
My partner and I have not long returned from a week at the Moon Palace.
It’s been 19 years since I originally visited and since then, the complex has expanded considerably, with more extensive facilities though, sadly, still with the same nuisance operatives constantly trying to sell time shares.
In terms of services, the resort is first class,…
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My partner and I have not long returned from a week at the Moon Palace.
It’s been 19 years since I originally visited and since then, the complex has expanded considerably, with more extensive facilities though, sadly, still with the same nuisance operatives constantly trying to sell time shares.
In terms of services, the resort is first class, with clean & comfortable rooms and excellent food and drink options. There is, however, a huge cause for concern.
With a few days left of our vacation, late in the afternoon, my partner and I were resting on sun loungers near the swimming pool. At 4.15pm, I took a photo of him and that is the last of anything either of us remember, until nearly 2 hours later, when I had to be helped from the pool in a different part of the complex, having sustained multiple injuries.
During this period, my partner fell asleep, but when he was eventually woken, he proceeded to spend much of the evening feeling extreme nausea, dizziness, and then being violently sick. He also has no recollection of this same two-hour period, an instance which in itself is not normal for two individuals to blackout at the exact same time.
A visit to a hospital revealed I had suffered a fractured hand and coccyx, together with a severely sprained ankle, alongside multiple cuts, bruises and lacerations all over both the front and back of my body.
Having reported the incident to the hotel, it was expected they would be able to help piece together what had happened to me with the use of CCTV, but much to our surprise, they said they had no cameras operative that could assist. It was made clear that I was being treated responsible for my injuries due to being “drunk” on the basis that I couldn’t remember what had happened to me when I was found. Astonishingly, and on the basis they had apparently found a couple of towels with blood stains in a completely different area of the hotel, they suggested that, whilst inebriated, I must have scaled, unaided, a roof of around 15 feet high and then fallen from same. There was also no CCTV footage to corroborate this allegation (nor any social media footage of my alleged ascent or fall) and, for good measure, we were given a warning against repeat actions. I was informed that no further investigation would occur unless I remembered what had happened. I was then treated with the upmost disrespect by the public relations team for the remaining days of our stay with instances where they would ask us to meet with them, we would attend the center and then have the free agents with no customers present, look up at us in my wheelchair and then proceed to ignore us with menial tasks for periods of over 15 minutes.
Having returned home, I have seen a sexual health nurse, who was very familiar with this type of blackout situation, where people’s drinks are spiked, and they have zero memory of the preceding hours despite drinking relatively small amounts of alcohol prior. The type of injuries I sustained are commensurate with being dragged on my back and, the deep cuts and severe blistering on my fingers are from where, even whilst drugged, I was evidently trying to stop myself from being pulled. Quite how this could have happened without anyone seeing remains a mystery, but I can only assume I was either carried or ‘aided’ to an un-overlooked area, and anyone watching the initial assault would have just assumed I was being assisted for some reason. I’m told that by the time the hospital carried out their blood test the following day, the administered drug would have left my system.
My injuries included cuts and bruising on the inside of my thighs and buttocks, and whilst it may be a blessing that I cannot remember what happened to me, it is not clear if the assault was also sexual.
To make it clear, my partner and I are not big drinkers and had enjoyed a total of 3 drinks during the course of 5 hours that day. I am not suggesting for a moment the hotel had anything to do with this, but they were certainly complicit in their facile investigations thereafter, with no police involvement, the failure to question any guests who may have witnessed any of the events, and their conclusions were as ludicrous as they were unsubstantiated. Certainly, it could be perceived that the warning they gave was a means of attempting to ensure we took no further action.
The British Consulate have been advised of what happened and reading around the subject since our return, I see this is not an uncommon incident in Mexico, with varying and often fatal outcomes. There is obviously danger in most areas in the world and whilst I would naturally more wary if we had selected a cheap, back street hotel in a rather less salubrious area, the same is simply not true of a five star establishment like the Moon Palace, where one can reasonably expect to be safe.
Whether the hotel management are aware of such incidents happening is open to conjecture and whilst I’m sure that, in an all inclusive resort, they must be used to dealing with their fair share of inebriated guests, the fact is the drugs were administered into our drinks somehow, and they must surely take incidents of this nature seriously, putting measures in place (CCTV and improved drinks screening, being the obvious ones) to better protect themselves and, more particularly, the safety of their guests.
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