Lynn Smith, right, faces a £30,000 travel insurance bill (Image: Kennedy News and Media)
A mum has been lumbered with a £30,000 bill after cracking her skull in a horror holiday incident. Lynn Smith mistakenly believed she was covered by a family travel insurance policy when she flew out to Majorca for an early 60th birthday party.
She had also headed to the sun-kissed Spanish island for her 40th and 50th celebrations, but this trip turned into a nightmare.
Lynn, 59, began to feel faint in her hotel lobby on May 22 but assumed it was because of the heat. She then fainted on the marble floor and smashed her head on the tiles.
She was rushed to hospital where doctors diagnosed her with a fractured skull and a brain bleed. The NHS employee had two surgeries to stop the brain bleed before she was placed in a medically induced coma.
Lynn’s daughter, Rose Rushbrook, was forced to borrow £30,000 to afford a medical flight home to Colchester General Hospital in Essex on June 9.
Rose thought her mother was covered under her family travel insurance policy, but the small print revealed it only covered those under 18.
Lynn went under the knife for two surgeries (Image: Kennedy News and Media)
Rose, from Colchester, said: “It was heart wrenching. It was the morning, she’d had her breakfast, she was just walking up the hotel ramp to book a boat trip and she said she felt faint.
“She’s very healthy, she eats well and she doesn’t drink alcohol so it was most likely just heat.
“That caused immediate swelling and her eye was really swollen while a bleed on the brain was trying to come out. It’s been horrific really from that point.”
Lynn went under the knife for an emergency craniectomy, a procedure to relieve pressure on the brain.
The patient is now able to open her eyes again but Rose, 34, says doctors are unsure what her recovery will look like. At the moment she can’t communicate and it’s hard to determine how much she knows.
Lynn thought she would be covered by her daughter’s insurance (Image: Kennedy News and Media)
Lynn’s medical care was covered by her European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) but this didn’t include repatriation back to the UK.
Rose assumed her mother would be covered by the family’s travel insurance because they all lived together, but it turned out not to be the case.
She managed to borrow some money to secure the flights needed to repatriate Lynn.
Rose said: “I didn’t look into the small print about it only being [people] who are under 18, so it was a bit of a small print issue.
“I left my dad out there who is in his 80s and we were having to pay for his hotel, which was working out at £1,000 a week, so we were burning through money.
“It’s been horrific. It’s impossible to know right now [for recovery] but she can move her eyes and she responds to voices.”
You can donate to Lynn’s GoFundMe here.