The SOS from Álex’s family: admitted for two months in Bangkok with 40% of his pancreas necrotic, he asks the Army for help to return to Spain

Álex and Usoa, a young couple from Guipuzcoa, went on vacation to Thailand on February 19th. On the 25th of the same month, he was urgently admitted to the ICU due to a pancreatitis that has caused necrosis of 40% of the organ in question (pancreas). Since then, Usoa, his family and his friends have been fighting to bring him back to Spain. After two failed attempts, which have left them in a delicate financial situation, they have created a crowdfunding with which they hope to raise what is necessary to try again. In Guipúzcoa, his two children, ages five and eight, are anxiously waiting for his father without knowing when or how he will get home.

Alex and Usoa embarked on what could have been the trip of their lives on February 19 to Thailand. Some time before starting the route, Álex had different stomach discomforts, so he went to the emergency room of the Basque health service -Osakidetza- on several occasions. All were resolved without any mishap under the diagnosis of “intestinal gases”.

“They told him that they were airs, period. If he had been sick, we would not have flown,” Usoa, Álex’s partner, tells EL MUNDO. Without further worries, the San Sebastian couple began their vacation and arrived at the Asian destination famous for its paradisiacal beaches and jungle environments.

Six days after arriving, on February 25, Alex presented some sharp pains in the stomach and they decided to go to the Hospital. Once there, he was admitted to the ICU. Chiang Mai, a city located in the mountainous north of the Asian country. Then, he was diagnosed with acute pancreatitis along with a 40% necrosis of the same vital organ, Usoa shares.

He remained in a hospital in Chiang Mai until March 20, date on which the first repatriation was attempted. “The intentions were to take a plane to bangkok and then another until Munich“says the victim’s wife. After a first flight to Bangkok capital to take a commercial flight to Munich with the doctor who provided the travel insurance contracted by the couple, Álex “He got a lot worse, he really wasn’t capable of flying”shares Usoa. The captain of the Bangkok-Munich flight prevented Alex’s access and he had to be urgently admitted to a different hospital, the Samitivej from Bangkok, where it remains today.

The relatives of the affected person want repatriate it whatever it takes. To do this, after everything narrated and after having spent the 100,000 euros that the travel insurance covered, they got a fully medicalized plane for 221,000 euros. After a first positive opinion, ensuring that in its condition it could fly, they accessed the aircraft. “When they checked him exhaustively on the plane, they saw that he was more critical than the medical reports from the Samitivej hospital and They didn’t let him fly“Argues Usoa. Consequently, they lost all the money invested (221,000 euros) in Álex’s second repatriation attempt.

Now, with their last remaining strength, their relatives are holding talks with the Ministry of Defense. “I think they are the only ones who can help us”, the Basque woman says with despair. “We know that there is an Aeroevacuation Medical Unit (UMAER). They are the ones that carry out repatriations for people in critical condition like my partner,” Usoa points out as the last option. Defense is currently evaluating the request.

CROWDFUNDING

The friends of the affected person, through the Gofoundme platform, have enabled a space called ‘Help us bring Alex home’. On this website, those interested in helping both Álex and Usoa and the family members, who, apart from the 221,000 euros for the medical plane, have already invested 35,000 euros to keep it in the hospitals, “can contribute their grain of sand” , since “the medical costs are very high and we no longer have anywhere to get it,” Usoa concluded in conversations with this newspaper.

Usoa has been in Spain since April 12. Álex remains in the ICU of the Bangkok hospital in critical condition accompanied by his mother. Those close to him have assured that “They are tired, we ask for direct repatriation on a military flight for my husband and that’s it”, the Gipuzkoan verbalizes. The family, his two small children and his friends; They anxiously await the response from the Ministry of Defense in order to put an end to this series of tragic events that have turned a peaceful vacation into unforgettable and dramatic ones.

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