Pa. Woman Who Died in Dominican All-Inclusive Had Heart Attack, Says Resort

The Pennsylvania woman who died in her hotel room last month on an anniversary trip to the Dominican Republic died of a heart attack, the resort said in a statement, disputing the claim of her family spokesman that she died of respiratory failure.
Shortly after arriving on the Caribbean island on May 25, Miranda Schaup-Werner, 41, collapsed and died in her hotel room at Luxury Bahia Principe Bouganville hotel in La Romana, Fox News reports.
She died five days before an engaged couple from Maryland were found dead in their room at a hotel in the same La Romana resort. (The two hotels share the same phone number.)

The causes of death for the engaged couple, Edward Nathaniel Holmes and Cynthia Ann Day, was determined to be respiratory failure and fluid accumulation in their lungs. Jay McDonald, who is acting as the family spokesman for his brother-in-law, Daniel Werner, Schaup-Werner’s husband, told Fox News that Miranda died the same way.
“They died five days after, and the cause was determined to be the same, this just puts this whole thing through the stratosphere,” McDonald said.
“Something is going on, and we want to know what it is.”

But a statement from Bahia Principe Hotels & Resorts says Schaup-Werner’s cause of death was determined to be a heart attack by the National Institute of Forensic Sciences and the National Police Investigations Unit.

PEOPLE was not able to immediately reach these agencies for comment.

According to the resort’s statement, that finding aligned “with official statements provided by Mr. Werner, who confirmed she had a history of heart conditions.”

The statement added that “established security protocols were followed” in the deaths, and that “there are no indication of any correlation between these two unfortunate incidents.”
Univision reports that Robin Bernstein, the ambassador of the United States to the Dominican Republic, said the incidents were isolated cases — an assertion also made by the resort in its Wednesday statement.
“We have 2.7 million Americans who come to the country and the statistics is that this is a very … unique event,” Bernstein said. “They come to visit the beautiful beaches and enjoy the great culture. Unfortunately sometimes those things happen to people.”
Schaup-Werner, an Allentown, Pennsylvania psychotherapist, was celebrating her 9th anniversary with her husband and collapsed shortly after mixing a drink from the minibar in her room on the day the couple checked in, McDonald told Fox News.
“Suddenly, she called out to Dan and he came right over and she was unable to breathe. She collapsed, she couldn’t communicate,” McDonald told Fox New.
Werner attempted CPR and called for help, and responding paramedics administered an epinephrine injection, typically used to treat life-threatening allergic reactions, but Schaup-Werner was declared dead soon after.
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• By Greg Hanlon
• By Joelle Goldstein

This Story Originally Appeared On People