A Nevada widow whose husband died from an accidental fentanyl overdose is shedding light on the harrowing impact of the drug.

Jacob Wade, 26, a former Marine, had been a devoted family man to his wife, Britain Tomlin, and children, Walker and Blakely, when he accidentally overdosed on a drug cocktail laced with fentanyl in February.

It’s unclear what other drugs Mr Wade was taking, but accidental overdoses involving fentanyl have become an increasingly common tale in the US. Many victims don’t even know they’re taking it. 

Ms Tomlin is now warning against the dangers of the drug, which kills one American every eight minutes.

‘Fentanyl robbed us of a wonderful man – a devoted husband, a loving son, and a caring father,’ she said.

‘I’m determined to raise awareness about the devastating fentanyl and opioid crisis, urging the government to step up its efforts in aiding those grappling with addiction.’

‘We need more resources to support individuals battling substance abuse and to assist their families.’

Ms Tomlin and Mr Wade met in 2018 after he returned home from the military. The two shared an ‘instant connection.’

‘Before we knew it, we were married and embracing the arrival of our precious kids,’ Ms Tomlin said.  

Mr Wade was an aspiring entrepreneur who spent his free time fishing, hiking, and riding his dirt bike. He also regularly volunteered in his community, such as building homes for families in need. 

But he also had a history of drug use that started when he was a teenager. It started with marijuana before escalating to harder drugs. 

‘Throughout our relationship, he put in tremendous effort to break free from his addiction, and there were moments when he believed he had conquered it. But then, he would fall back into old patterns, and the cycle would restart,’ Ms Tomlin said. 

‘Drug dependency had transformed Jacob into a different version of himself – someone who no longer recognized the person he had become.’

‘The actions he took while under the influence haunted him when he was sober, casting a shadow of sadness and self-disappointment.’

The Department of Homeland Security has declared fentanyl the ‘single greatest challenge the US faces as a country.’  

The potent synthetic opioid is 50 times stronger than heroin and 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine. It is used by doctors for patients in serious pain or with terminal illnesses.

It is cheap, highly addictive, relatively easy to smuggle into the US, and cost-effective for dealers to mix it into their supplies, which saves them money and can extend or boost the high that users experience.

But it takes a vanishingly small dose of fentanyl to cause a fatal overdose. Just two milligrams, the equivalent of five grains of salt, is enough to cause death.

Because it is cut into other popular drugs, many people who die of overdoses do not know they are taking fentanyl. Fentanyl has also been partially blamed for America’s sharp fall in life expectancy over the past three years.

It’s now found in everything from cocaine to molly and street benzodiazepines like Xanax.

The opioid being cut with virtually every street drug in the country killed a record 75,000 Americans in 2021 in the latest numbers, the equivalent of 1,500 lives lost weekly. 

And deaths from fentanyl-laced drugs have risen 50-fold in just over a decade. 

It was also linked to the death of Euphoria star Angus Cloud, 25, who died earlier this year from an accidental overdose of fentanyl, cocaine, and meth. 

‘It’s so common to think addiction is just a choice. How could the people we love willingly go down that path of using drugs or risking their lives? They have so much to live for, and their choices affect many others,’ Ms Tomlin said. 

‘We tend to label those who make such choices as selfish, self-destructive, irresponsible, and reckless. But the truth is that addiction doesn’t stick to any specific type. It doesn’t care if you’re strong or weak, selfless or selfish, kind or heartless. It can hit anyone.’

Ms Tomlin said that her relationship with Mr Wade was strained at the time of his death. She had recently moved out with the kids and was temporarily staying with family. 

On the day he died, he had stopped responding to her texts. Mr Wade’s parents found him unresponsive.

‘I couldn’t go upstairs as paramedics were still trying to help him. My kids were in the car with our neighbors, witnessing the police, ambulances, and fire trucks gathered around our home,’ Ms Tomlin said. 

‘Even today, my daughter, who was just three years old, remembers how her daddy was put on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance.’

At the hospital, doctors informed her that Mr Wade had passed. 

‘I fell apart, dreading how to break the news to our children and his parents,’ Ms Tomlin said. 

‘I spent about an hour with him, and before leaving, I took a necklace I had given him and left a bracelet with his mom. I whispered my final words and left, carrying the weight of that heart-wrenching day with me.’

After her husband’s death, Ms Tomlin took to social media to bring awareness to fentanyl and drug overdoses. 

“If you know someone struggling, don’t wait – take action,’ she said. 

‘Show them kindness and honesty, reach out as soon as possible, and keep checking in. Life’s too short to let fear of judgment hold us back. Yes, my grief is always there, heavy and strong.’

‘I’ll carry Jacob with me wherever I go. But you know what? Despite all that pain, I’ve found ways to grow and experience real happiness.’

‘My life isn’t done yet. Jacob’s memory lives on, cherished by everyone who loved him.’

Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Narcan, the nasal spray that rapidly reverses opioid overdoses.  

The medicine can now be sold over the counter without a prescription.

• The toddler suffered severe neurological damage brough on by the amoeba
• Health officials confirmed the amoeba was lurking in the country club’s water
• READ MORE:  Nevada boy dies from rare brain eating amoeba from Lake Mead

By Cassidy Morrison Senior Health Reporter For Dailymail.Com

Published: 11:33 EDT, 15 September 2023 | Updated: 14:32 EDT, 15 September 2023

YouTuber Tiago Eugenio dies after 80 days in a coma following car crash: Portuguese star’s mother pays tribute to her ‘great warrior’

• The Portuguese star, 28, suffered serious injuries following car crash in Algarve 

By Rachael Bunyan

Published: 02:52 EDT, 15 September 2023 | Updated: 04:25 EDT, 15 September 2023

By Sam Tonkin

Published: 07:26 EDT, 11 September 2023 | Updated: 07:59 EDT, 11 September 2023

Giles Broadbent – the husband of former Blue Peter star Diane-Louise Jordan – has passed away aged 51 following a short illness.

Giles, who was part of the Stringfever quartet and played the violin, had been ‘unwell’ in the months prior to his death, it was confirmed on Thursday.

The statement, released by his band, said: ‘Although Giles had not been well recently, we as a family are still in shock at his passing. The band will be taking a break whilst we make funeral arrangements.’

Diane-Louise, 63, and Giles had been married for 16 years after tying the knot in 2007. They have a daughter, Justine, previously Diane-Louise’s niece, but whom she adopted when her sister died unexpectedly.

Former Songs of Praise presenter Diane has previously gushed over her ‘magnificent’ husband who she called a ‘genius violinist’.

On the band’s website, Giles described himself as ‘young at heart’ and revealed his love for the ‘buzz of performing live shows’.

Speaking to Sheer Luxe last year, she said: ‘We share similar values, even though we’re quite different people – I’m much more of an introvert and Giles loves the house to be busy and full of people. 

‘He’s also a musician, so he’s very expressive too.’

The couple, who met in 2006, enjoyed a whirlwind romance before marrying just a year later.

During his career, Giles led some major orchestras for some much-loved West End shows including Phantom Of The Opera and My Fair Lady.

He formed his band in 2003 alongside his brothers Ralph and Neal, and cousin Graham.

The quartet previously went viral when they uploaded a video playing their version of Ravel’s Bolero, where all four players play on one cello at the same time.

Their music is a mix of classical, film soundtracks and rock’n’roll hits and have proved a huge success worldwide, touring across India and China.

Diane, who is best known for being Blue Peter’s first black presenter in 1990, was a favourite among viewers and shared a close bond with co-star Anthea Turner.

Speaking to the The Sun last year, she said: ‘I was definitely told it was a big thing for me to become the first black presenter. There’ll be media interest and there may be members of the public that aren’t happy about this. At that time Blue Peter was a bit of an institution. It was the nation’s favourite children’s programme. There was a lot that rested on that decision.

‘For any Blue Peter presenter you’re more than a presenter, you’re an ambassador really, and so to be the first black presenter I definitely knew getting that job was much more than representing myself. I knew the spotlight was on me and if I got it wrong that might reflect in a negative way on others like me.

‘When I started the job I was told to prepare for a few dissenting voices, and as expected there were letters that very vocally expressed how much they disliked someone like me, but within not too long a period of time the viewers got to know me, and when you get to know somebody the fear about who you assumed them to be, on the whole, tends to dissipate.’

It was around this time that Diane became a guardian to her niece Justin, following the sudden death of her sister Jay after she contracted a virus. 

With NASA aiming to return humans to the moon later this decade and perhaps send people to Mars in the 2030s, a lot of thought will have to go into how humans might survive long-distance space travel.

But what if the unthinkable happens and someone dies? 

In six decades of human spaceflight a total of 20 people have perished – 14 in NASA’s space shuttle tragedies of 1986 and 2003, three cosmonauts during the 1971 Soyuz 11 mission, and three astronauts in the Apollo 1 launch pad fire in 1967.

However, none of those were actually killed in space itself.

NASA does not have set protocols for dealing with death in space, but researchers around the world have put forward how such a tragedy could be dealt with.

First of all, it’s important to point out that there’s a number of ways space can kill you.

Chief among them is being exposed to the vacuum of space without a pressurised suit as protection, perhaps because of damage to the garment or some unexpected failure with a spacecraft that leaves an astronaut exposed to the cosmos. 

Canadian astronaut and former commander of the International Space Station (ISS) Chris Hadfield gives an example. 

‘In the worst case scenario, something happens during a spacewalk,’ he said.

‘You could suddenly be struck by a micro-meteorite, and there’s nothing you can do about that. 

‘It could puncture a hole in your suit, and within a few seconds you’re incapacitated.’

Being exposed to the vacuum of space would make it impossible for a person to breathe and would lead to the boiling of their blood and other bodily fluids, according to Emmanuel Urquieta, a professor of space medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine.

The astronaut would probably have just 15 seconds before they lost consciousness, making asphyxiation or decompression the most likely cause of death. 

That’s because in around 10 seconds the water in their skin and blood would vaporise, causing the body to expand like a balloon being filled with air and lead to the collapse of their lungs.

Within 30 seconds the astronaut would be paralysed, if not already dead.

Whether or not you held your breath would also make a difference to how quickly you perished.

If you did, the air in your lungs would expand, rupture your lungs, and kill you pretty quickly. If you didn’t, you could remain conscious for up to two minutes.

So if the worst happened, what would then happen to the body?

Well, it wouldn’t freeze instantly.

In a vacuum, the only way to lose heat is by the evaporation of fluid or by radiation, which happens very slowly for a relatively cool object like a human body.

Eventually, however, it would enter a frozen, mummified state where it would then sail through the cosmos for millions of years until it perhaps one day encountered another planet or star and was destroyed by the heat or radiation. 

What if your body could be recovered, however? 

Experts say it would likely be brought back to Earth if a death occurred on a short mission to places like the ISS or the moon.

But on a round trip to Mars that would not be immediately possible because a crew might be millions of miles away when it happened.

Instead, the body could possibly be frozen in the cold of space to reduce its weight and make it easier to store on its way back to our planet, according to Professor Christopher Newman and Professor Nick Caplan of Northumbria University.

Or it would have to be preserved in a specialised body bag, according to Professor Urquieta.

He said cremation would not be possible on the Red Planet because it ‘requires too much energy that the surviving crew needs for other purposes’.

Burial also isn’t an option because of bacteria and other organisms from the human remains could contaminate Mars. 

NASA actually has strict laws about contaminating other planets with Earth microbes, according to Catherine Conley of NASA’s Office of Planetary Protection.

She said they would all have to be killed, which brings cremation back into play, but the most likely outcome would be to preserve the body on the spacecraft until it could be brought back to Earth. 

So how would a death on Mars or the moon differ to it happening en-route to such a destination?

Well, it would be a very similar outcome if an astronaut had no spacesuit to protect them. 

That’s because our lunar satellite has almost no atmosphere at all and Mars a very thin one with next to no oxygen.

There’s also the danger of radiation.  

Previous data of the Red Plant suggests it is hit with 700 times the radiation experienced on Earth.

Radiation can alter the cardiovascular system, damaging the heart, harden and narrow arteries, or eliminate some of the cells in linings of the blood vessels, leading to cardiovascular disease and maybe end with death.

All of these factors will have to be considered if and when any future human mission to Mars is attempted.

For now, however, NASA is focusing on returning human boots to the moon by 2025 as part of its Artemis programme. 

A Russian general who was keeper of secrets about Vladimir Putin‘s £1 billion Black Sea palace has died mysteriously in jail.

General Gennady Lopyrev, 69, suddenly became ill on Monday – gasping for breath – and was told by doctors he had previously undiagnosed leukaemia.

There are now suspicions he was poisoned just as he became eligible for parole.

The general was jailed for ten years in 2017 by a military court accused of bribe-taking and illegal possession of ammunition – charges he always denied.

Serving in the Federal Protection Service [FSO], he personally oversaw the construction of Putin’s gargantuan clifftop Gelendzhik Palace, a private residence allegedly built with state cash.

He was also responsible for the dictator’s official residence Bocharov Ruchei in Sochi.

Up to his jailing he had been one of Putin’s closest security aides, and was seen with the Russian president and then British premier Tony Blair in Moscow in 2002.

It comes as another Russian general, who led the invasion of Ukraine until he was purged by Putin, also met a suspiciously sudden end this week.

Having been healthy on Sunday when he spoke to his son Alexander, Gen Lopyrev suddenly became ill on Monday complaining of speaking and breathing difficulties, reported Telegram channel VChK-OGPU.

‘He could not breathe and had a hoarse voice,’ said the channel likening the symptoms to those of Putin foe Alexei Navalny who was poisoned with nerve agent Novichok.

Lopyrev was taken on Monday from penal colony number 3 in Ryazan region to two hospitals.

He told his son Alexander by phone: ‘I was taken to Skopin [hospital] first, and they found nothing conclusive.

‘Now they brought me to Ryazan regional hospital, and said I had leukaemia.’

The son said: ‘But isn’t leukaemia a cancer… Surely it couldn’t catch you in just two days?’

Speaking to media, Alexander said: ‘I also spoke to the chief of their medical unit, who said his heart check returned normal, and lungs were clear.

‘It is hard to say what exactly happened. We were getting ready to apply for his parole, because it was time [to apply]… And now this call [to say he had died].

‘It’s all very strange, and way too fast.’

His father was extremely fit and routinely practised gymnastics while in the penal colony, Alexander claimed. 

‘Everything was fine on Sunday,’ he said. ‘We had a chat via a payphone, there wasn’t a single complaint about his health.

‘His voice was energetic, he spoke about his usual sports like gymnastics and stretching. Every day he walked 15km [9 miles].

‘On Monday he called with his voice suddenly sounding hoarse. By evening on Monday… he called from [hospital in] Ryazan, saying he felt really unwell…he said he struggled to breathe.’

Viktor Boborykin, chairman of the Public Monitoring Commission for the region, said there was ‘nothing criminal’ in his death.

Navalny had earlier identified Gen Lopyrev as being responsible for Gelendzhik and knowing all the secrets of its funding.

Putin’s Black Sea palace includes a pole-dancing hookah boudoir, casino, and ‘aqua disco’.

It has a 16-storey underground complex which has been compared with the lair of a James Bond villain.

A mining engineer who worked on the construction it had indeed been built for the president and ‘there is a whole anthill in the rock under the house’ including a nuclear shelter.

The subterranean maze includes a cliff face loggia overlooking the sea and a vast wine cellar.

The death of Gen Lopyrev followed that of Col-Gen Gennady Zhidko, 58.

Zhidko briefly led the invasion of Ukraine as commander of the Southern Grouping of Forces before giving way to General Sergei ‘Armageddon’ Surovikin in October.

The 58-year-old also served as the Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces in Syria in 2016, and in 2018 was appointed Commander of the Eastern Military District.

The high-ranking official – who was awarded the highest honorary title, the Hero of Russia, for his service in 2017 – later became deputy minister of defence in 2021.

Zhidko was ousted from his role in Ukraine in October 2022 – as commander of Putin’s ‘special military operation’ – after the failure to grab the city of Kharkiv.

He had been seen as in charge since April after taking over from ousted General Alexander Dvornikov, aka the ‘Butcher of Syria’.

The role led to Western sanctions against Zhidko.

Surovikin, who replaced him, was later demoted from the role by chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov.

Surovikin remained his deputy but is believed to have been detained in June amid suspicion he knew of plans to stage a coup against Putin’s regime by Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Little had been seen of Zhidko in recent months.

His death was confirmed by the loyalist governor of Khabarovsk region Mikhail Degtyarev, who expressed his condolences, but there was no official announcement.

The reports did not say where Zhidko died. He was seen as having one of the best military brains in Russia.

The deaths of Generals Lopyrev and Zhidko are just the latest in a long line of suspicious fatalities among the upper echelons of Russia’s military and business elite in recent months.

Major General Vladimir Makarov, 67, was in charge of ‘combating extremism’ in Russia and was found shot dead in February.

He reportedly led the hunting down and suppression of opponents of the Russian president, as well as journalists deemed hostile to the Kremlin.

Makarov also took action against young people who protested against Putin.

Putin issued a decree to fire him in January, though his reasons for doing so remain unclear.

Makarov’s wife Valentina was in a country house with her husband in Golikovo village near Moscow at 7am when she heard a gunshot, local reports said.

Some reports said a Berkut-2M hunting rifle was found nearby. Other accounts said a pistol was discovered.

His wife summoned a family member and called an ambulance but paramedics could not save Makarov, said reports, and he was pronounced dead.

The dead general’s family were being interrogated by the Russian Investigative Committee, reported Moskovsky Komsomolets, a Moscow-based daily newspaper.

The publication said that firearms were kept inside the house. 

Relatives said he ‘did not know what to do’ after Putin axed him.

VChK-OGPU Telegram channel cited a source saying Makarov had been in ‘deep depression’ following his ousting.

He had been deputy head of the Interior Ministry’s Main Directorate for Combating Extremism, which was also responsible for countering terrorism.

From December 24 to 26, there was a string of four particularly mysterious deaths. 

On December 26, Pavel Antonov – the richest deputy of the Russian Duma (parliament) and a Putin critic – died in India falling out of a hotel window.

His companion Vladimir Bidenov was found dead in the same hotel four days earlier.

Aleksey Maslov, 69, the former chief of Russian Ground Forces, died in hospital on 25 December while Aleksandr Buzakov – head of Russia’s ‘admiralty shipyards’ for a decade – died on December 24.

Last July, retired Major General of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation Yevgeny Lobachev, 76, was found dead in Moscow. His death was also ruled as suicide.

Other recent deaths have included the editor of a popular Russian propaganda magazine, the vice-president of Gazprombank and a senior Gazprom official.

One man burned alive after falling asleep with a lit cigarette in Moscow, another fell from a balcony, and another fell down a flight of stairs.

Suspicious deaths of notable Russians have not been confined to Russia’s borders, either. In April, Sergey Protosenya – Former Deputy Chairman of Novatek – was found hanged from a handrail. His wife and daughter were found killed with stab wounds.

Businessman Mikhail Watford was found dead at his home in Surrey, England, while another – Vladimir Bidenov – died in France after hitting his head on a railing.

Brit woman, 39, dies while hiking amid soaring temperatures on Spanish island of Fuerteventura

• 39-year-old’s body was discovered just before 1pm yesterday near Morro Jable
• It comes as the Canary Islands began experiencing a heatwave on Friday 

By Natalia Penza

Published: 04:59 EDT, 14 August 2023 | Updated: 08:16 EDT, 14 August 2023

From a blind date that turned into a first love to a 14-year affair that ended in a very ugly – and public – court battle, Clint Eastwood’s love life has been as varied as his film career. 

The actor was an unabashed ladies’ man in Hollywood, living with mistresses while he was still married – only to break their hearts with headlines about secret children. 

Fast-forward decades later and it seems most of that is under the bridge, with even Eastwood’s first wife electing to join him at his latest movie premiere with all eight of his children. 

But just who were Eastwood’s many loves? 

MAGGIE JOHNSON 

Before he was famous, Eastwood fell in love with a model named Maggie Johnson – who he met on a blind date when he was 23 years old. 

The year was 1953, five years before the actor received his breakthrough role in the CBS series Rawhide.

Eastwood and Johnson quickly got engaged and married just six months after their first date. 

It was during their engagement that Eastwood had an affair with a woman in Seattle, who got pregnant and gave up their child for adoption.

Eastwood and Johnson separated in 1964 after he had an affair he had with a Rawhide stuntwoman, but briefly rekindled their romance and welcomed children Kyle Eastwood in 1968 and Alison Eastwood in 1972. 

The couple officially divorced in 1984. 

ROXANNE TUNIS 

Eastwood met Tunis on Rawhide, where she was a regular stuntwoman and extra on the show. 

The pair quickly hit it off and began having an affair, which lasted into the 1970s.  

She even appeared in Eastwood’s film Every Which Way But Loose in 1978.  

Tunis gave birth to Eastwood’s second child, Kimber Lynn Eastwood, in 1964. She died in June of 2023 after a brief illness, her daughter said. 

SONDRA LOCKE  

Eastwood had a 13-year affair with actress Sondra Locke, who he met in 1972 on the set of The Outlaw Josey Wales. 

Locke lived with Eastwood from 1975 to 1989, while he was still married to Johnson. 

The couple never had any children but she later claimed that he forced her to get two abortions. 

Locke said she also got her tubes tied because Eastwood said parenthood didn’t fit their lifestyle, only to find out that he had fathered two children with another woman during the last three years of their relationship. 

Things turned ugly after Locke learned of Eastwood’s affair and in 1989 she filed a palimony lawsuit after he changed the locks on their Bel-Air home and put all her possessions into storage. They eventually settled. 

JACELYN REEVES 

It was flight attendant Jacelyn Reeves who Eastwood had an affair with while he was with Locke. 

Reeves went on to give birth to their son Scott Eastwood in 1986 and daughter Kathryn Eastwood in 1988. 

The couple reportedly ended their relationship in 1990 after it came out in an expose published by The Star. 

Kathryn and Scott grew up with their mother in Hawaii but still had a relationship with their father. 

Scott, an actor, has auditioned to be in a number of his father’s films and appeared in Gran Torino and Invictus. 

FRANCES FISHER 

The same year that Eastwood broke things off with Locke and Reeves, he fell for a woman named Frances Fisher. 

As with many of his romances, Eastwood met the actress on set of a film together. 

The pair lived together for five years and Frances gave birth to their daughter Francesca Fisher-Eastwood in 1993. 

DINA EASTWOOD   

Shortly following his split from Fisher, Eastwood fell for TV news anchor Dina Ruiz after she was assigned to interview him about the film Unforgiven. 

The pair married three years later in 1996 and Dina gave birth to their daughter Morgan that same year. 

Dina starred in the E! reality show Mrs Eastwood & Company, which centered around her life in Los Angeles with Morgan and step-daughter Francesca. 

Eastwood only made a few appearances on the show, which premiered in 2012. The couple filed for divorce after 17 years of marriage in 2013.

NOOR ALFALLAH

Eastwood was snapped on a date with film producer Noor Alfallah in January of 2019 in Los Angeles. The producer, who had past dated Mick Jagger, welcomed a baby with Al Pacino in 2023.

A Texas mother-of-three has passed away after traveling to Mexico to undergo a boob job and contracting meningitis — making her the ninth American victim in the outbreak of the fungal infection.

Crystal Villegas, 31, spent the last four months fighting for her life in a Texas hospital after contracting fungal meningitis, a rare infection that causes swelling around the brain and spinal cord.

She traveled to Riverside Clinic in Matamoros, Tamaulipas State, Mexico, located on the border with Texas, US, reportedly to save money on the op.

The outbreak, linked to two Mexican clinics, is feared to have infected hundreds and has already killed nine American women, mostly young mothers, highlighting the dangers of so-called ‘medical tourism.’

Ms Villegas lived in Brownsville in the state, just on the other side of the border. 

She was receiving treatment at the Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen following her boob job, and passed away at around 6:30pm on 30 July.

Her husband Juan Tapia, a super featherweight boxer who fights under the name Johnny Blaze, said: ‘It was a hard four months, she fought hard and never gave up.’

According to Mr Tapia, his wife regretted having the breast implant surgery and desperately wanted to see her three young children grow up and become adults.

He added: ‘Those few months have been very difficult, very hard for me, but I am at peace that she is now resting.’

In the days following the operation in Mexico, Ms Villegas began to complain of a severe headache and her condition worsened with a high fever.

After going to the emergency room, tests revealed she had meningitis.

Mr Tapia also claimed that two of Ms Villegas’ friends had also died after undergoing a cosmetic operation, including a close friend in March.

Ms Villegas is one of nine Americans who have died from the fungal infection, including mom-of-two Jody Adkins, mom-of-four Lauren Robinson, who received a boob job, liposuction and Brazilian butt lift (BBL) and mom-of-one Shyanne Medrano, who underwent liposuction and a BBL. A further death of a Mexican patient also occurred, according to local news media.

Before she passed away, Mr Tapia said his wife was ‘learning how to walk again, learning how to use the restroom again, how to talk again.’

He added: ‘Please, please be aware of the risks of cosmetic surgeries. Our hope is to spread awareness so that people can actually do the research.

‘It changes everything. Everything. It’s not worth it.

‘I wish this was all just a bad dream that we could wake up from and go back to the day before the surgery and somehow, someway, convince her not to go.’

Every year, over one million US citizens travel to Mexico for cheap cosmetic procedures at private clinics where safety protocols are often deficient compared to US standards.

Earlier in 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advised US residents not to undergo procedures in Mexico that involve epidural medication due to an ‘outbreak of fungal meningitis.’

The fungus isolated in the two clinics appears to be Fusarium solani, which was linked to a previous meningitis outbreak in Durango, Mexico, late last year.

According to the CDC, that outbreak, which was also linked to epidural anesthetic procedures, had an almost 50 percent mortality rate with those infections — with 39 deaths among 80 cases.

The new outbreak is thought to be due to contaminated epidural equipment, used in procedures such as a BBL, or dodgy morphine.

The victims of the latest outbreak have paid up to $5,000 for their surgeries, a fraction of the price they would pay in the US.

Health officials told DailyMail.com in June that they had been able to reach roughly half of the 230 people who received surgery at either clinic since the start of the year. The outbreak was first reported in May 2023.

Both clinics were closed in May. But if other confirmed cases are found at other facilities, the number at risk could be much higher.

The CDC is urging everyone who received surgery with an epidural (injection into the spine to numb part of the body) at either clinic this year to go to the nearest emergency room as soon as possible to be evaluated, even if they do not have symptoms.

The epidural is used in procedures such as liposuction, breast augmentation and Brazilian butt lifts, which can be more than $16,000 cheaper than in the US.

If a woman got these surgeries done in the US, it could set them back up to $20,000.

Chris Van Deusen from Texas Department of Health told DailyMail.com that while most of the cases have been women, some have also been men.

He said: ‘If anybody knows of somebody who may have gone to Matamoros to get surgery, let them know that they could be affected by this and to know what to look out for and they can certainly contact either us at the state or their local health department in their area to get more information.’

In its latest update, the CDC said it is investigating 151 people who may have the infection.

There have been nine deaths. Eight of these are confirmed cases, and one is a probable case. There is now a total of ten confirmed cases.

The patients being overseen by the CDC reported symptoms including headaches, fever, stiff neck, nausea, vomiting, confusion, and sensitivity to light.

Dr Tom Chiller, head of the fungal diseases branch at the CDC, told DailyMail.com: ‘It’s so critical to get people in as early as possible and it’s not really too late. 

‘I think so far, the longest period from the time of procedure to symptoms has been up to 50 days.

‘Fungi just have these long indolent periods sometimes and we’re not sure why and so it’s really not too late, we want people to get in and be evaluated.’

Dr Chiller added that the agency does not know the exact source of the fungal meningitis yet, and ‘we may never know it, unfortunately.’

He said the CDC is open to the fact that the infection could have occurred in other clinics. Currently, the source of the infection is thought to be the morphine provided to patients by anesthesiologists.