Egypt holidays: British tourist stranded in hospital after breaking hip - as family forced to raise £55k to get him back to UK
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Geoff Seedall, 69, was on a family holiday in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, when he tripped over in the hotel and broke the bone. The grandad of three was told he needed surgery to repair the bone but it's been recommended by doctors in Egypt that he has the operation in the UK.
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Hide AdGeoff's daughter-in-law Kelly Seedall, 40, says the travel insurance company want him to pay £40,000 for a medical flight home and £15,000 for his hospital stay. The company will then reimburse Geoff, who was recently diagnosed with vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disease, but his family cannot afford to do this.
Kelly said: "The whole reason you get travel insurance, is so you aren't in this situation where you have to pay out thousands. If we had the money, then we wouldn't take out travel insurance because we don't need it.
"But they are saying we have to upfront the cost to get it home, and they will pay us back at a later date. We've put a complaint in and it will take eight weeks for them to respond - Geoff doesn't have eight weeks so we need to get him home."
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Hide AdKelly says they have considered getting Geoff, from Stalmine in Lancashire, a commercial flight home but are worried about this because he's "getting confused." She said: "They would need to airlift him home. The £40,000 would be for the aircraft and for two nurses to go with him and put him on a stretcher. There's been talks of him getting on a commercial flight but he's confused and is lashing out - he's also struggling with the language barrier.
"To put him on an aircraft with other people, wouldn't be the best solution so I think we need to get him home now. Obviously if you are waiting for people to board a plane, then it's going to be a problem so we are hoping to get the £40,000. But we will do whatever it takes to get him home."
Geoff who has type one diabetes, is currently in Egypt with wife Eileen, 66, and grandson Ryan, 21. Kelly says the whole family are "heartbroken" about the incident and she's avoided telling her daughter Zara, seven, as she doesn't want to upset her. You can donate to the Go Fund Me page here.
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