After a rough motorbike crash in Bali, a kiwi guy and his family are drowning in debt from hospital bills. His mother has remortgaged her house, borrowed thousands from friends, and maxed out her credit cards, while his father has tapped into his life savings and is attempting to sell his guitars and motorbike.
Before you start berating the victim, know that he did purchase insurance before traveling to Bali, but this accident was not covered because of some technicality with his locally-issued driver’s license. Scary. This really makes us eager to triple check all the fine print from now on.
The accident victim, New Zealander Jacob Webster, 33, has been in a Kuta hospital ever since he got into a life-threatening motorbike crash on January 8, reports Fairfax Media.
“[Jacob] was on his scooter, and another scooter pulled in front of him and in order to avoid hitting him he swerved to get out of the way, but hit him and hit the pavement,” says Webster’s mother Gael Thompson, as quoted by Fairfax.
“He was bleeding into his leg . . . it builds up and is a life-threatening situation.
“We had to pay for a very urgent surgery, because of the risk of the bleeding.”
According to reports, Webster shattered both thigh bones and is suffering injuries to his arm and hand.
As if hospital bills weren’t bad enough for this sort of thing when you don’t have insurance coverage, Thompson says they were asked to pay upfront for her son’s medical care.
“It seemed like the only option at that time was to pay the money, borrow it and put it on credit cards.”
Bringing Webster back to New Zealand isn’t on the table at the moment since the hospital will not release his passport until all bills are settled and he’s also not fit enough to travel yet, says Thompson.
The family needs about another USD8,000 after already paying USD18,000 with hospital costs of about USD1,000 per day, Thompson said.
Photo: Flickr
