Michael Moore's blue eyes gleamed against his Hawaiian shirt in excitement about the giant shrimp cocktail he was about to eat at a resort in the Dominican Republic.

“Life was good,” said his wife, Holly Burtner-Moore, about that moment captured on camera. “We were so in love, and everything was perfect. I'd go home with a beautiful picture and a dead body.”

The Butler resident lost her husband April 3, 2008 — the day before they were to return home from their Punta Cana vacation.

Burtner-Moore cautioned future travelers to avoid the country in the wake of the 10 U.S. tourists who died in the past year at Dominican Republic resorts, or at a hospital immediately following their stay.

According to published reports, the tourists died of everything from severe illness to being physically attacked or shot.

More than 2 million Americans visited the Dominican Republic annually over the past two years, according to the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association. The Caribbean nation shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti to the west.

For Burtner-Moore, what started out as an all-inclusive, weeklong, tropical island vacation filled with days of warm beaches and poolside cocktails at the Dreams Punta Cana Resort & Spa ended in tragedy.

“It was terrible, incomprehensible, the whole thing,” Burtner-Moore said of the unexpected death of her husband.

The couple booked their trip through Pennsylvania-based Apple Vacations. Burtner-Moore knew what to expect after the couple previously honeymooned at an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica in August 1999.

“It was a beautiful resort,” she said about the ocean-side location. Punta Cana is the easternmost tip of the Dominican Republic.

They never left the resort alone, traveling instead in a shuttle bus to excursions scheduled through the resort. They never shopped outside the resort, nor did they visit other towns. In fact, vendors were banned from the private beach, she said.

Burtner-Moore said the day before their departure began with morning coffee on the patio. Michael, 40, was enjoying his last Cuban cigar from the resort's gift shop because he knew he could not take them home.

In their hotel room, Moore told his wife he was suddenly not feeling well. Burtner-Moore commented that at least he was not feeling chest pains.

“I've never seen that look in his eye before,” she said. “I asked if he could tell me more. He said, 'Don't worry, it'll probably pass.'”

As they exited their room, Moore shook out both arms and said they felt tingly.

As they made their way to the front desk to confirm their departure plans, Moore said he would go to the resort's medical center.

Halfway to the front desk, Moore collapsed “like a jellyfish” with his wife's hand in his, outside on the stone sidewalk, she said.

She asked a young resort-goer to help roll her husband onto his back, Burtner-Moore said. Instead, he ran away.

“I didn't know what was going on,” she said.

Screaming housekeepers speaking in Spanish gave her a towel to put under his head.

“The only word I could get from them was 'doctor,' ” she said.

A fellow vacationer who was an emergency medication technician offered assistance.

Burtner-Moore said she and her husband had visited a family physician in December for annual checkups. Moore's bloodwork was fine. He took no medications and did not have heart problems, high blood pressure or high cholesterol.

The EMT and Burtner-Moore began CPR on her husband. They could not find a pulse.

Moore was shocked with a defibrillator and intubated on the sidewalk in front of Burtner-Moore and a crowd that gathered.

“Over and over again — he never came back,” Burtner-Moore recalled, adding that her husband had turned purple from the shoulders up. “I was talking to Michael — 'Wake up honey, open your eyes, I love you, come back to me.'”

An ambulance arrived.

“Nobody directed me, but the EMT grabbed me and said, 'Go with him, do not (let) him out of your sight,'” Burtner-Moore said.The 45-minute drive consisted of dirt roads with chickens and goats, she said. They pulled into the ambulance bay of a modern hospital. Moore was taken into a room, and a green curtain was closed around him.“I just stood outside the room while they worked on him — all by myself,” she said. “I had no idea what was going on.”An Apple Vacation representative went with Burtner-Moore to the administration office to help fill out her husband's paperwork, which was in Spanish. She refused a sedative offered by nurses.Then, the head doctor came from behind the green curtain. The representative told the doctor he had to tell Burtner-Moore about her husband, but he refused.“At that moment, I knew he was dead for real,” Burtner-Moore said. “I'd always hoped the whole time he would come back, but at that moment it made it real.”Burtner-Moore went in to see her husband and gave him a kiss. She took the wedding band off his finger and put it on her own.As she left the hospital, she was told she owed $3,000 before she could leave.Burtner-Moore gave the hospital the money and saw her husband one final time.Other guests with whom she had traveled offered Burtner-Moore condolences and the hotel's assistant manager stayed with her for the duration of the stay. Burtner-Moore packed, made phone calls to her family and boss, showered and could not sleep.Burtner-Moore remembered waking up on the flight home and seeing an empty seat next to her.“I'm coming home a widow,” she thought.Moore's body was sent to Santo Domingo to be embalmed, said Burtner-Moore, who canceled her husband's passport since the document never was returned to her.When a Thompson-Miller Funeral Home employee examined her husband's body, Burtner-Moore said, she was told that his autopsy had been botched. Moore had a cut that ran from his cheek, under his chin, down his neck and into a V-shape.In the end, the cause of death was coronary atherosclerosis, which Burtner-Moore's physician told her is a heart attack.At least three other American tourists recently died of the same cause, Burtner-Moore said.Her family questioned whether Moore died as a result of food he ate or a Cuban cigar he smoked that could have been laced.“Eleven years later and I still go through the stages of grief on a daily basis,” she said. “As more years pass, I focus on happy memories, rather than what, if and why because I will never have those answers.”From time to time, she has thrown coffee cups at the television when she hears of travelers going to Punta Cana. Burtner-Moore advises travelers of the cautionary tale that left her a widow.“I would tell them, 'Do not go,'” she said. “Do not spend a dime.”