Add CategoryINSTEAD of getting ready for Christmas at home with her two young sons, a Canberra mum is stranded in Thailand with horrific injuries after a scooter crash during a surprise birthday getaway.
Shani Bourne and her partner Sam William, both 25, were riding on a hired scooter in Patong when they crashed into a parked truck while trying to avoid a car swerving towards them.
It was Ms Bourne’s first trip overseas.
She suffered bleeding on the brain, a fractured pelvis, broken nose and cuts to her face and body as a result of the accident.
“[Shani] just went flying [in the crash] — her face doesn’t even look like her at the moment,†Ms Bourne’s sister, Kiandra Bourne, said.
“Everyone’s ... missing her terribly, her two boys especially and feeling helpless but we are all just so, so thankful she is alive.â€
Mr William suffered a broken arm in the accident.
Fairfax reports the couple were due to fly home to Canberra on Tuesday but have since become stranded in Thailand, with insurance unable to help cover the $80,000 needed for medical transport home.
Ms Bourne’s doctors have said she is not yet fit to fly on a commercial airline, she told Fairfax from Phuket.
“[The doctors] refuse to let us fly with my condition and because our insurance refuses to cover us we have nearly no money left and no way home,†she said.
Ms Bourne said she was recovering slowly but still in a lot of pain — and the medical bills were adding up.
“It’s ridiculous, they won’t even give me painkillers without payment first,†she said.
The medical bills for Ms Bourne and Mr William currently stands at over $14,000, and will continue to rise, according to a GoFundMe campaign page set up to help the couple.
Kiandra Bourne said the pair’s insurance claim was knocked back as Mr William’s Australian motorcycle licence had lapsed.
The GoFundMe campaign, created on Wednesday, is trending and has already raised more than $58,000 towards the estimated $80,000 needed to bring the couple home.
The accident is the latest in a spate of incidents involving Australian travellers this year.
In October, Brisbane woman Stacey Liddle was injured days before her 30th birthday, after her scooter collided with a bus in Chalong in Phuket.
This came just weeks after the tragic news that Sophia Martini, 27, has been killed when she fell off the back of a scooter in Bali driven by her boyfriend.
She was the fourth Australian to die in a motorbike crash in Bali since April 2016.