American travel blogger Kaitlin McCaffrey is currently stranded in a Balinese hospital after sustaining a traumatic brain injury in a scooter accident on July 31. The accident left McCaffrey comatose, and her international medical insurance provider has reportedly refused to cover the necessary costs to evacuate her for treatment in the United States.
According to a GoFundMe page created by a friend of the McCaffrey family, “The costs to evacuate [Kaitlin] using an experienced medevac company, such as Air Med or International SOS, are extremely daunting. Due to the distance and COVID-related border closures, it is estimated that the cost will be approximately $250,000 US dollars.”
The GoFundMe page, which has accrued over $240,000 at the time of writing, also notes that Balinese authorities have denied the family’s requests to be issued emergency visas to visit McCaffrey at her hospital in Denpasar, the Balinese capital, citing the ongoing pandemic.
A video update uploaded to YouTube earlier today by Bob Stolebarger, whose wife Dena Cruz created the GoFundMe page, reiterated the need for McCaffrey’s relocation. Though the lawyer and family friend acknowledges that she’s “receiving all the care the Bali hospital can provide,” Stolebarger describes McCaffrey’s condition as “critical” yet “stable” and states that she “desperately needs a medical evacuation to a hospital in Northern California where she can receive the level of care necessary.”
The McCaffreys have already found a major trauma hospital in Northern California, where Kaitlin was raised, that can treat her if the family is able to have her medically evacuated.
Though the situation remains tense, the McCaffreys have expressed their gratitude to everyone who has donated to Kaitlin’s GoFundMe, as well as to the young men who found her “alone, unconscious, broken, and bleeding” following her horrific scooter accident.
“Without their help,” the page reads, “she surely would have died.”
The post American traveler denied medical evacuation after accident left her comatose in Bali appeared first on Matador Network.
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