April Gougeon, 41, and her 8-year-old son Oliver passed away less than 24 hours after arriving at the resort. CTV
A Toronto man is seeking justice and raising awareness after his wife and young son tragically lost their lives from food poisoning while staying at a resort in the Dominican Republic. Stephen Gougeon, who is filing a $10 million lawsuit, hopes that by sharing his story, he can help prevent similar incidents from happening to other families.
In December 2023, Gougeon and his family arrived at Viva Dominicus Beach by Wyndham Resort. The family, including Gougeon’s wife April and their two sons, Oliver and Wesley, planned to enjoy a relaxing vacation. However, their first meal at the resort’s buffet turned into a nightmare. By early the next morning, the entire family was violently ill, experiencing severe nausea and vomiting.
“We were all throwing up,” Gougeon recalled. “It progressed to a point where we had to try and seek medical attention.” Despite their desperate condition, the resort staff initially failed to take the family’s cries for help seriously. Gougeon says they were told to go to the on-site medical clinic, but he explained they were too sick to even make it to the bathroom.
It wasn’t until later in the afternoon, after a second plea, that the resort finally responded, and the family was taken by wheelchair to the clinic and then by ambulance to a nearby hospital. Tragically, both April, 41, and 8-year-old Oliver passed away soon after arriving at the hospital. Gougeon shared that the situation worsened rapidly, “They degraded and then my son passed away… and then very shortly after, my wife passed away.”
Devastated by the sudden loss, Gougeon struggled with how to tell their 7-year-old son Wesley that his mother and brother were gone. “It’s the worst thing — the worst thing a father and a husband will ever have to do,” he said.
A coroner’s report from the Dominican Republic concluded that April and Oliver’s deaths were caused by complications related to food poisoning. Gougeon describes returning home without his family as an overwhelming hardship. “Living life without them is extremely hard,” he added.
The civil lawsuit, filed by Gougeon and his legal team, accuses the resort of failing to follow proper hygiene protocols, not having effective emergency procedures in place, and neglecting to respond to the family’s urgent requests for help in a timely manner. “What the Gougeon family would like is accountability,” said the family’s lawyer, Meghan Hull Jacquin. “They’re trying to make something good out of this horrific tragedy that they’ve been through and continue to live with every day.”
The lawsuit also includes Air Transat Holidays, Transat Tours Canada, Wyndham Hotels, and the clinic where the family was first treated. Gougeon had booked the all-inclusive vacation through Transat, trusting that the companies would meet high health and safety standards. A spokesperson for Transat expressed sadness over the deaths but denied the allegations, stating that they had not been tested in court.
As he battles his grief, Gougeon hopes that by speaking out, no other family will have to endure the heartbreak he has experienced. He emphasized that resorts must have better medical practices and policies in place to handle situations like his. “I think that resorts need to have better medical practices and policies so that if someone is in my situation, they’re not having to deal with what I have to deal with — for the rest of my life.”
