Alexander García Galas, the Basque tourist who spent two months hospitalized in Thailand for pancreatitis, is now in Bilbao. The medical plane of the Spanish army that repatriated him landed this past Sunday at six in the afternoon in the Basque Country and from there he was transferred by ambulance to the Cruces hospital, in Barakaldo (Bizkaia).
García, 36, traveled with his partner to Thailand for a vacation. However, after showing some discomfort on the fifth day, he was urgently admitted to a Thai hospital, where he was diagnosed with acute pancreatitis and had to be admitted to a Thai hospital. Two months later and after several attempts to return to Spain in vain, they have finally achieved their return. He is now admitted to the ICU in the Basque Country, conscious and stable, despite the severity.
His family has experienced a real ordeal to be able to repatriate him. Above all, because of the financial headaches it has caused: the family exhausted the 100,000 euros that the insurance covered and spent many more out of pocket with the medical expenses plus the two failed attempts to bring him back to Spain.
The first time, on March 20, García’s health was too delicate to be able to face the hard journey of more than 14 hours to Spain. His condition “grew much worse,” and the captain said that he was “unfit to fly.”
The second, the family hired a private company with a medical plane. Still, it was not possible and they lost all the money. “We hired a private ambulance company paying 221,000 euros and we were ruined. In the end they left us on the ground because they saw that he was not fit to fly and they left him there.”
The medical team sent by the Ministry of Defense left Bangkok this Sunday accompanied by Álex García’s mother and sister-in-law, who were also with him in Thailand.
The medical plane finally landed at the Bilbao airport after 6 p.m. on Sunday, April 21, from where an ambulance took him to the Cruces hospital in Biscay, at the wish of his family.
