A British tourist is hospitalized thousands of kilometers from her home after being swept out to sea by an unusual wave. The woman does not have health insurance.
Charline Edwards, a 24-year-old girl from Birmingham, who was on a beach in Cape Verde with her boyfriend, was swept away by the sea and is now in “unbearable” pain.
She suffered a nerve injury to her spine and lost feeling in her arms and hands, although her partner, Callum Aston, said the woman would have to be transferred to a hospital in the United Kingdom to receive a thorough evaluation of her injuries.
Aston’s mother launched a crowdfunding campaign to get her out of the “terrible” medical center she is currently in, with costs that could be around $50,000. As she stated, “being young, they agreed to go on vacation at the last minute because a colleague couldn’t go and they forgot to take out travel insurance.” She also stated that they are both “scared” and that the hospitalization costs, so far, are about USD 12,500.
Callum Aston and Charline Edwards
(GoFundMe)
According to the British media BirminghamLivealthough there were green flags to indicate that the area was safe for swimming, the waters were “somewhat rough.”
“The water reached below our waists, Charline was floating on her back, very relaxed. Suddenly, a huge wave fell on top of her. When I finally got up, she was nowhere to be found. She was about 18 meters out to sea when I managed to find her.”
Aston had to “swim against the current” to drag his girlfriend back to shore, and a couple helped him carry her.
“After about five minutes, a group of lifeguards approached, but she couldn’t move anything from her neck down. They tried to drag her arms and legs away from the shore, so I told them, ‘You can’t do that, she hurt her back, and this is going to cause more damage.’
“I begged them to help us and call for an ambulance. It took more than 30 minutes to do it, and it was more than two hours until the paramedic team arrived at the beach.”
Aston assured that “he had to lift [a Edwards] to get in and out of the CT scanner because there were no staff available to help” and that medical staff “deliberately kicked her” to see if she was in pain.
“She has been wrapped in her own urine for two days because the medical staff has not changed her sheets. All this time, I have dedicated myself to feeding her, washing her, dressing her, changing her, and I have made sure that she has painkillers constantly, since the staff has not given her any type of help, “she declared to BirminghamLive.
Translation of Noelia Hubert
