British woman's travel insurance warning after horror sewer fall in Hawaii

A woman has been left with nerve damage on her left leg after falling down a 6ft sewer manhole while on holiday in Hawaii. Millie Stephenson, 24, had just arrived in Hawaii to meet a group of online friends after a 46-hour journey from Cape Town, South Africa.

Her friends asked her to take some pots and pans out to the car and Millie stepped on the manhole cover. Unbeknown to her the cover had split and Millie fell into the hole - catching her leg on a torn pipe.

After screaming for help her pals pulled her up to safety but noticed the gash on her left leg. But after arriving at hospital, and being put in a bed, Millie discovered her medical insurance had run out the day before.

So rather than staying, she decided to treat the wound with hydrogen peroxide and butterfly stitches herself and hobbled around for the rest of her trip. Millie's cuts and bruises healed over without medical attention but she has been left with numb and sensitive leg and still has the scars.

Millie, a content creator, from Box Hill, Surrey, said: "I go out and suddenly I'm just down a 6ft sewage hole. I felt weird sensations. I just pause - trying to process what had happened. Then I just scream. My friends start running out to me and started trying to pull me up. They eventually got me out. One of the girls said 'Millie, your leg' The cut was fleshy. The scarring is really bad. I have a hole on my leg and a dip on my shin."

Millie had been travelling as a digital nomad for the last year when she flew to Hawaii to see some girls she had met online. She said: "It was after a 48-hour journey from Cape Town. I was really delirious."

Millie arrived at around 8pm in the evening. She explained: "They needed some pots and pans put in the car. I can't remember why. I was a guest so I wanted to help."

She stepped on the sewage cover and fell. Millie added: "There was a drainage pipe not attached to anything. That's what cut my leg. My hips had massive purple bruises."

Millie headed to the doctors and was asked to provide her medical insurance. She said: "I go on it and my travel insurance ran out the day before."

But she couldn't afford to pay for the cost of the medical help - which started at $500 just to be checked in. Instead she made do with cleaning the wound thoroughly to avoid an infection and buying butterfly stitches to stick on the cut so it could heal.

Millie said: "I treated myself. I hobbled around shoeless for the rest of the holidays. I'd lost my flip flops down the hole." Millie's cut did eventually heal.

She said: "It healed over within seven months. I can walk on it and run. It's sensitive on that part of my leg. I went for a mani-pedi and they started massaging my leg - it was the most painful thing ever."