COBB COUNTY, Ga — A woman says her body is so scarred from the bed bug attack, it is affecting her dating life.
Now she has filed a lawsuit against the hotel where she said the insects bit her over a three-day period.
“I woke up literally feeling like something was eating at me,” Dashawn Diaz told Channel 2’s Tom Jones.
Diaz took video with her cellphone of one of the bedbugs. She said people keep asking about the scars.
"I just get overwhelmed with having to explain to them all the time what happened to me," she said, trying to hold back tears.
Diaz said bed bugs attacked her at the Crestwood Suites Hotel in Marietta on Roswell Road.
When she asked for a refund so she could move to another hotel she said management refused her request.
She said management eventually moved her to another room, but it was too late. She said she later developed an infection in her leg.
"This is an actual wound that came from one of the bed bugs that infected in my leg," she said, showing the wound that she says looks like a bullet hole.
Diaz was hospitalized and doctors discussed amputating her leg. Her attorney, Sparticus Heyward, said the hotel is at fault.
"We believe they were on notice that they had a bed bug problem and they didn't do enough to prevent my client from suffering the severe injuries that she did," Heyward said.
The hotel manager says the establishment works hard to get rid of bed bugs when they find them.
“It happens. They’re always treated. The cases are taken very seriously. All the rooms around it are quarantined until the problems fixed,” a hotel representative said before saying she couldn’t comment about the lawsuit.
"I don't want this to happen to somebody else," Diaz said.
She said the scars from the bites have left her depressed and feeling less than beautiful.
“I feel like my whole life has been altered and shattered because of these bed bug bites,” she said.
WSBTV
