We accepted these complimentary drinks while on a dream vacation to Mexico… then our lives changed forever

Rachel Villarreal and her partner Anthony Grigsby had saved for years to afford their trip to Mexico City, and it was shaping up to be the holiday of a lifetime.

The pair had meticulously planned everything, from a hot air balloon ride to museum and market visits – even a boat trip down a historic Aztec canal.

But what was meant to be a dream five-day break for the Texas couple turned into a fight for Ms Villarreal’s life after she was poisoned.

While on the boat trip, the pair were offered complimentary ‘homemade’ shots. They were presented in beautifully decorated jars and two were coconut flavored – Mr Grigsby even taking pictures (shown below).

But within hours of drinking the shots, Ms Villarreal fell ill – suffering from a fever, stomach ache and throbbing headache that left her bedbound.

Two days later, Mr Grigsby woke up to find Ms Villarreal face down on the floor, motionless. When he turned her over, he found her eyes rolled back in their sockets. 

In the ER, tests revealed she had been poisoned with methanol, a toxic type of alcohol found in antifreeze and windshield washer fluid.

When methanol enters the body, it is broken down into a highly toxic acid that causes cells to break down and organs to stop working.

Ms Villarreal nearly died three times while in the hospital, where doctors said her organs kept shutting down and she was struggling to breathe.

Her brain was swollen and bleeding, suffering inflammation from the methanol that was also causing neurons to start to break down.

She was immediately put into a coma to try to limit the damage by stopping her brain from swelling further.

Doctors also had to cut a hole in her neck to insert a tube to supply oxygen to her lungs because they were not working properly.

Ms Villarreal, now 37, is still in therapy to regain her strength.

She has been left with brain damage to her basal ganglia, the area of the brain involved in motor control, which causes her to sometimes walk a few steps backward involuntarily.

And she struggles to speak because of all the scarring in her throat caused by hospital tubes.

In the Daily Mail’s hour-long interview with the couple, more than a year on from the accident in January 2024, Ms Villarreal could manage only nine words because of the pain it causes her to speak. She instead motioned to Mr Grigsby to remind him of events.

She spoke only to say their ages, to confirm they had been together for ‘three years’ and to say that earlier in the day she had been to ‘speech therapy… for my voice’.

Methanol is a byproduct from alcohol production normally formed during the fermentation process.

While commercial alcohol beverages are distilled to remove it, drinks made improperly or illegally do not – and can contain methanol left behind.

Illegal breweries are common in Mexico, although it isn’t clear how many people suffer or die from methanol poisoning in the country each year.

In May 2020, early in the Covid pandemic, more than 100 deaths from methanol poisoning were reported in Mexico – Covid restrictions had limited the availability of commercial liquor, leading more people to make their own alcohol.

In November last year, six tourists including an American man died after drinking tainted alcohol at a hostel in Laos, near Thailand.

Warning signs of the poisoning start within 24 hours of drinking the methanol, and begin as headaches, dizziness, vomiting, abdominal pain and blurred vision. Some mistake the symptoms for bad food poisoning.

But without treatment, patients can suffer from seizures, coma, respiratory failure and even death. Drinking as little as two tablespoons of methanol can be deadly.

There are about 3,000 cases and 24 deaths from methanol poisoning in the US each year, but they are normally linked to children drinking anti-freeze rather than tainted alcohol.

To treat the poisoning, doctors administer ethanol, which neutralizes the methanol and stops it breaking down into a toxic substance. 

Mr Grigsby told the Daily Mail there were no signs the drinks contained methanol.

‘The coconut one tasted good,’ he said. ‘The other one, I don’t remember tasting it, but, you know, we drank them really fast. It was just like a shot.’

On the ride back to their Airbnb a few hours later, Ms Villarreal said she was feeling sick with a pain in her stomach. Then she vomited. 

She also started to suffer from body aches, a headache, and diarrhea while Mr Grigsby became sick too, suffering from severe headaches, sweating, hallucinations and the ‘worst pain ever’.

Mr Grigsby likely did not get nearly as sick as Ms Villarreal because the alcohol he drunk contained a much smaller amount of methanol.

But the pair stayed in the Airbnb for two days and did not call an ambulance, believing the symptoms were food poisoning and would soon wear off.

On the third day, however, after Mr Grigsby found Ms Villarreal face down on the floor he called an ambulance, which took her to the ER.

At the hospital, doctors told him it was ‘very likely’ that Ms Villarreal wouldn’t survive – and that even if she did she might have brain damage, be confined to a wheelchair and could go blind.

After ten days, however, she started to come around – occasionally squeezing Mr Grigsby’s hands and starting to wake up.

It was another two weeks until she opened her eyes and began to move again, walking up and down the hospital halls. But scarring from the tubes made it difficult for her to speak, meaning she mostly relied on a notepad to communicate with others.

She was flown back via air ambulance to a hospital in their home city of Austin, but would repeatedly suffer from a serious cough infection that would lead her to be continuously hospitalized throughout June and July. 

Now, more than a year on, she is still struggling to speak – and will likely soon need an operation to remove scar tissue from her windpipe.

Mr Grigsby said they had trouble covering costs while in Mexico. The ambulance taking Ms Villarreal to the ER stopped for gas and told him to pay for it.

In the hospital, his credit cards wouldn’t work and his US health insurance (from Aetna) and travel insurance (from Expedia) initially refused to cover the care.

He and Ms Villarreal’s family ended up clearing their savings to fund the care and raised $25,000 on GoFundMe before the insurance agreed to cover it. Overall, the bill was $50,000.

After the accident, Mr Grigsby’s family and Ms Villarreal’s mother and at least one of her sisters flew out to join them. 

The Daily Mail has reached out to Aetna and Expedia for comment. 

Mr Grigsby said they reported the methanol poisoning to the authorities but, to the best of his knowledge, no follow-up investigation was made and the people who served them the drinks were not arrested.

He said officers simply told them that where they went for the boat ride, Xochimilco, is known as a bad part of town where ‘shady’ people are, and that this happens reasonably often.

‘Just beforehand, my camera roll is full of pictures of boats and the shots, and then the aftermath is just Rachel in the ICU and also her recovering too,’ he said.

‘These people, they will never know how much damage they did to Rachel and how much they changed her life.’