Desperate family launch fundraiser to bring dad home from Thailand after grapefruit-size mass paralyses him
The devastating discovery of a grapefruit-sized mass on a man's spinal cord has turned his family's world upside down, as they launch a fundraiser to bring him home from Thailand.
One family’s ‘world has come crashing down’ after their dad and grandad, Robin Staker, 76, was rushed to a hospital abroad after enduring excruciating pain in his legs.
The former landlord of The Stag in New Road, Portsmouth, who moved to Pattaya, in Thailand, on a permanent basis after the pandemic, was advised he required an MRI scan and further tests.
But, due to the costs associated with the treatment, he refused the scan and was sent home where his condition rapidly worsened.
His concerned daughter, Sarah Gore, sent him the funds for the scan but by the time he was able to get an appointment, he had lost all feeling in his legs.
“I phoned the British Embassy to see how they could help me and they gave me a long list of flight medics who could bring him home.”
On July 14, Robin received the devastating news that he had a grapefruit-size tumour pressing on his spinal cord, which was causing his paralysis.
Desperate to try and get her dad home, Sarah was frantically searching for viable ways to get him on a flight back to the UK.
After scraping together £13,000, the family organised flight medics to accompany Robin home, which was due to land on Thursday, July 24. However, within seconds of arriving at the airport in Bangkok, Robin collapsed and stopped breathing, sparking an emergency response from the flight medics on hand.
Sarah said: “There was no way he was getting on that flight.
“The flight medics took him to a private hospital, so I had god knows how many messages asking for money, but because I had spent thousands on the flight I didn’t have that kind of money, so he was taken to a government hospital where he was left on a hard trolley, and where he went 30 hours without food or drink.
“A friend of my son’s knows a Thai police officer so she asked him to go and check on my dad to see what was going on. He spoke to the doctors and my dad was moved - they started turning him because his back was in a state, probably with bed sores - but with everything going on with Cambodia, her friend hasn’t been able to go back.
“It is very difficult. I don’t even know where in the hospital he is now because there is no communication - he knows the doctors need to do tests but he doesn’t know what they are.”
The mum of two, who said she is determined to get her dad back to the UK, has now been told that she would need to fork out an additional £9,000 for Robin to fly back on a stretcher.
As a result, the family has launched a GoFundMe page which has currently raised £1,695.
Sarah added: “If they don’t get him to a sitting position, the only other option, and possibly the safer option, is for him to be stretchered here which they can do but it is another £9,000 on top of what I have already put up.
“I have begged and borrowed to try and raise as much as I can - I have tried everything. If we could just get this GoFundMe up a bit.