A British soldier has been left stranded in hospital in Thailand after a suffering a horrific catalogue of injuries falling at a beauty spot he and his girlfriend spotted on TikTok.
Liam Gibson, 21, lost his footing while visiting the idyllic Na Muang Waterfall 2, known as one of the gems of Koh Samui, and plunged around 30ft onto a rock ledge below.
He shattered his femur, fractured his skull and broke several bones in his face and spent two hours slipping in and out of consciousness from the agony while waiting hours to be rescued.
Liam, who has been in the army for five years, has been in hospital since the accident on April 12 and now faces medical bills spiralling into the tens of thousands of pounds.
His girlfriend Lucy Baldwin, 20, has launched a fundraising page seeking £100,000 in donations to help bring him home.
She described how the ‘worst experience of [her] life’ started off as the ‘perfect day’.
Just a week into their month-long backpacking trip, the childhood sweethearts were exploring the island on a rented moped when Lucy saw the waterfall pop up on TikTok.
Speaking to MailOnline, she said she didn’t even see Liam fall.
‘There was loads of families at the waterfall and Liam was taking pictures when I realised he had been gone just a bit too long,’ she went on.
‘I was shouting and shouting for him when I spotted him on on the rock ledge passed out.
‘I tried to climb down and reach him but I couldn’t so I started screaming for help – in the end a local Thai boy helped reach him.’
She said she believes that if he would be dead if he had fallen all the way down the waterfall.
But he somehow ended up lying inches from another 100m drop.
Lucy said: ‘I had to hold him so he wouldn’t slip further down the waterfall with my arms and legs wrapped around him, sitting in a pool of his blood.
‘He had bone sticking out of his leg, you could see his skull. It was absolutely horrific.’
Lucy’s GoFundMe page has so far raised more than £30,000.
On it, she writes that neither of them wanted to end up in a situation where they had to create a fundraiser.
But she adds: ‘This is our last option as his bill is over £100,000 and he will need a medi jet to get home.
‘He cannot leave the hospital until this bill is paid, so please please help me get my boyfriend home so he can get the surgeries he needs.’
Earlier this week, Liam’s sister Abbey McLeod, 26, said the family is grateful for the support they have received.
She said: ‘We really appreciate any help from anyone. At the moment they are still going through processes with the insurance.
‘He’s not allowed to leave the hospital until we’ve paid the medical bills and then it’s arranging the medi flight but at the minute we don’t have the funds.
‘We can’t even arrange it which is making the hospital costs go up daily at the moment.’
The Foreign Office said they ‘are aware of a British man who is hospitalised in Thailand and stand ready to provide assistance’.
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