‘Very dire’: Vacationing medical student, friends stuck in Mexico amid cartel attacks

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico (WSMV/Gray News) - A Nashville medical student says she is currently stuck in Mexico amid civil unrest after the Mexican army killed a cartel leader over the weekend.

Aimen Choudhary, a 27-year-old student at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, met up with some of her girlfriends for a vacation in Puerto Vallarta.

They arrived at the Fiesta Americana resort in Puerto Vallarta on a sunny Friday afternoon. But by the weekend, the city’s sky was full of smoke and helicopters.

“Around lunchtime is when people started talking. They had told us there was civil unrest going on in the region ... then we had started seeing smoke,” Choudhary said.

The Mexican army killed the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, “El Mencho,” on Sunday.

Tour guides warned Choudhary and the group about the dangerous situation when they were returning from a snorkeling trip. She said they suddenly couldn’t even find transportation back to the resort.

“We contacted taxi services, Uber services, everything was shut down. There was no way to get back to our hotel,” Choudhary said.

The people at the port said the group could stay with them, but that if they left, they couldn’t guarantee protection.

“We realized this situation was very dire and very serious,” she said.

The group decided to make the 30-minute walk back to the hotel, walking through streets with smoldering cars.

“It just hit us quick ... that this is in fact happening,” she said.

Choudhary recalled seeing armed men in uniform outside the resort. They were told to shelter in place at the hotel.

The medical student says her Tuesday flight remains in limbo as several flights have been canceled in and out of the area.

“The best that we can do is hope,” she said. “Right now, it’s just the unknown.”

And she isn’t the only Nashville resident facing the unrest in Mexico.

Nashville resident Sawyer Watts and his girlfriend were vacationing at the Four Seasons at Punta Mita Golf Course in the Mexican state of Nayarit, about an hour’s drive from Puerto Vallarta, when the cartel leader was killed.

Watts said that while he hasn’t been able to see much of what’s transpired in the area, he has seen a large plume of smoke from a fire.

“One of the staffers showed my girlfriend a picture of the fire and Google translated, ‘Don’t leave the resort,’” he said.

Officials said flights in Puerto Vallarta continue to be disrupted due to the availability of flight crews. Those in the area have been urged to seek shelter and minimize unnecessary movements.

As chaotic as the situation has been, Choudhary says she’s grateful for the people she and her friends have met.

“It’s one of those situations. We are taking it one day at a time,” she said. “The people around us have been amazing and we’re doing the best that we can.”