A ‘foolish’ Brit was left with a huge medical bill after breaking his neck while on holiday with no insurance.
Guy Evans ‘obliterated’ a vertebra in his spine when he fell off a ladder while staying at his father’s holiday home in the Loire Valley, France, last month.
The 30-year-old copywriter was rushed to hospital and had two operations which have enabled him to regain some movement in his arms and hands.
He is still unable to walk and returned to the UK on Tuesday where his treatment continues at King’s College Hospital in Camberwell, south London.
Despite his condition improving, the hefty medical bill, prompted by his lack of insurance, led his brother Robbie Evans to create a GoFundMe page.
Donations have flooded in since the page was launched at the beginning of May, and it topped the £102,000 mark as of Saturday.
Guy, from Camberwell, south London, admitted not getting insurance before the trip was ‘foolish’ and the donations are needed because the bills are ‘racking up’ and ‘go up every day’.
Luckily, news of his plight struck a chord with many and donations quickly came flooding in.
In an update on the page earlier this week, Robbie wrote: ‘We have now surpassed £100,000 in donations, and we are completely overwhelmed and so very very thankful.’
He explained they have already ‘put some of these funds to use’, which included bringing Guy back to the UK.
Once the medical bills and cost of repatriation are paid, the rest of the money will support Guy’s ‘long road to recovery and beyond’, Robbie explained.
This includes finding him a suitable place to live should he not be able to recover fully, he added.
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The accident happened a day after Guy arrived at his dad’s French home with his brother Stan Evans on April 19.
He fell from the ladder while collecting broken branches from a tree.
One snapped and he plummeted 10ft (3m) onto a stone wall, breaking the C6 vertebra in his neck.
The Londoner was rushed to hospital where doctors told him he had ‘very luckily’ not severed his spinal cord.
‘You always think that these things won’t happen to you,’ he said from his hospital bed.
‘I obliterated my C6 vertebra, which is one of the vertebrae towards the top of the spinal column.
‘Very luckily I’ve not severed the spinal cord, which apparently would be more or less curtains for me, so that’s still intact, which is the first bit of positive news.’
The day after the accident, Guy had a six-hour operation during which doctors reconstructed the broken vertebra by using bone from his left hip.
He had a second operation a week later and returned to the UK on Tuesday, where his treatment, including intensive rehab, continues.
You can donate to Guy’s GoFundMe here.
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