Canada

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Sheila Nabb and her husband Andrew are shown in a family handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO

A Mexican official says a suspect has been arrested in the bloody beating of a Canadian woman who was vacationing with her husband at a posh resort in Mazatlan.

Ivan Pico, an official with Mexico's Secretary of Tourism, says his ministry has not yet been provided any details about the suspect's identity. Pico could not confirm media reports that the suspect is a Mexican national.

Sheila Nabb, 37, was badly beaten last weekend at the five-star Mazatlan hotel where she and her husband were staying. Family members say Andrew Nabb didn't realize his wife had been taken to hospital until he woke up that morning.

Several bones in Nabb's face were broken and she will undergo facial reconstruction surgery. Her jaw has been wired shut and she was in a medically induced coma for a couple of days in Mexico. She also had pneumonia.

Nabb was brought back to Calgary on Friday in a private air ambulance jet and was taken to a hospital in the city she and her husband call home.

"It's a big relief knowing she is back in Canada," Nabb's uncle Robert Prosser said in an interview from his home in Kingston, N.S.

"We know she's safe and we know what the medical situation is like here, so we know she'll be well looked after. Calgary's got an excellent hospital there."