Daughter of Army vet who died at Dominican resort: Funeral home 'pressured' me to make a decision about my father's remains
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The daughter of an American veteran who died at a Dominican Republic resort said she's tried for a year to get answers about her father's death to no avail.
Meghan Arnold's father, 41-year-old Army veteran Chris Palmer, died suddenly in his room at the Villa Cocatal Palma resort in the Dominican Republic in April 2018. From the moment she learned of her father's death, Arnold said she began contacting anyone who might have information about the circumstances.
"Obviously his death was a complete shock to us because he was completely healthy," she told Harris Faulker during a Friday appearance on "Outnumbered Overtime."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"From the very beginning, I was contacting anybody I knew - the U.S. Embassy, the Dominican embassy, friends, co-workers, anybody."
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Eventually, she found out that his body had been moved to a funeral home. When she got in contact with the facility, she said they pressured her to make a decision about what would be done with her father.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Immediately, I was pressured to make a decision whether it was going to be cremation or embalming or I was told he would be stuck there," she continued.
Arnold said she was persistent in asking for a toxicology report to be done on her father to find out his cause of death and didn't want to make a decision about his remains until she could determine what exactly happened. She said she was told that the toxicology results would be included with the death certificate, which could take months.
"Any time I would try to return calls to try to get more information, it was always just dead ends," she said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Nobody had help for me and then slowly as the process began to switch over to him finally being brought home, the calls immediately stopped. I have not heard from anyone from that day on," she continued.
Arnold decided to have her father's body embalmed to be returned to their home in Kansas, then cremated once it was returned. His official cause of death was determined to be pulmonary edema - when fluid fills the lungs - and that he died of a heart attack.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}His death, and that of another woman, 69-year-old Barbara Diane Maser-Mitchell, are now being newly scrutinized after nine other people suddenly died under similar circumstances at Dominican resorts. Most died of heart attacks despite being largely healthy and without pre-existing conditions.
Dominican officials have downplayed the deaths and asserted that the vacationers died of natural causes.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“It’s all a hysteria against the Dominican Republic, to hurt our tourism, this is a very competitive industry and we get millions of tourists, we are a popular destination,” Ministry of Public Health spokesman Carlos Suero told Fox News on Wednesday.
His response left Arnold speechless.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I completely agree heart attacks can happen anywhere," she said. "Bad things can happen anywhere. But where else are we seeing 11 cases of almost the same thing in the same area, in the Dominican?"
She added that she will continue to fight for answers about her father's death, and encouraged other families to come forward with their stories.