By Cian Ó Broin, Irish Independent
A YOUNG Irishman holidaying in Thailand for several weeks fell seriously sick after being bitten by a rare species of mosquito while sitting in a taxi to go to a Bangkok airport and catch a flight back home on Nov. 19 and is still in ICU with his family now fundraising to fly him home in an air ambulance, Irish Independent reported on Dec. 13.
James Burke, 36, sent his family a “can’t wait to get home” text while in a taxi to the airport in Bangkok.
“But James never made it home. That was the last we heard from him,” said Margaret Creed, who is one of James’ eight siblings.
After days of frantic texting with no response from Burke, the family managed to track him down through hotel staff, who informed them that he was critically unwell in hospital.
The family heard through a Thai translator that the hospital staff needed their consent to intubate their brother, Creed told PJ Coogan on the 96FM Opinion Line.
“They said he needed to be intubated and put on a ventilator due to respiratory failure. He had acute kidney failure, pneumonia, a bleed on the brain and severe nerve damage,” she said.
Burke, who was in good form in the taxi to the airport, collapsed due to a rare mosquito bite carrying Type 2 Dengue fever, and later developed sepsis as a result, the family were told.
While his condition has slightly improved, Creed stressed that her brother is still in ICU, is being fed through a tube and is disoriented with a “vacant look in his eyes” most of the time.
“We don’t know if he will ever be the same again and we can’t go out to him because we have spent every penny of our savings on the hospital,” she said.
Each day the family receives a payment link from the hospital for €2,700 (around 102,000 baht) to keep Burke in ICU.
She stressed that despite taking out travel insurance during his travels, the company is declining the case as the day Burke landed in hospital surpasses the expiry date of his insurance.
The total cost to fly James home via air ambulance would be €176,000 (around 6.69 million baht)
“We don’t know where to turn, we are at the end of our tether. We have been through every TD. Our family are so distressed,” she said, particularly their 83-year-old father Walter and 76-year-old mother Maureen.
She described her brother as the apple of her mother’s eye and someone who is kind and would “do anything for anyone.”
The family have set up a GoFundMe in an effort to bring Burke, who is a truck driver in Cork, home for Christmas where he can hopefully get care in an Irish ICU bed.
“That is all we want for Christmas. If 100,000 people could give us €2 each (around 76 baht) we could bring him home,” she added.
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Top and Front Page: James Creed at ICU of a Bangkok hospital. Photo: Matichon
Insert: James Creed, who was bitten by a mosquito while travelling in Thailand in November. Photo: Irish Independent
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