The mood and expectations surrounding Álex García’s situation have taken a positive turn since he arrived at the Cruces de Barakaldo hospital and was operated on. The Basque tourist repatriated from Thailand in a plane of the medical air evacuation unit (Umaer) is “stable” in the intensive care unit of this Biscay hospital complex and the family is confident that he can recover from acute pancreatitis which took him to a borderline situation two months.
Álex García, 36 years old, arrived in Spain on Sunday and was immediately operated on at the hospital in Cruces for the pathology he has, a necrotizing pancreatitis that leads to the death of tissue in part of the pancreas and its infection organ In his case, more than 50% of his pancreas had become necrotic, so the situation was extremely serious.
The doctors who operated on him on Sunday gave a positive assessment of the intervention, although they have remarked that he remains in a serious condition and that the recovery process will be long. The immediate family of Álex García is focusing these days on accompanying him, but his cousin, Rubén Galas, confirms that he is “enthusiastic”, despite the “severity”.
“He is very excited to be here again. On the one hand, coming back has been a mental support for him and, of course, for the whole family. On the other hand, the operation went well and, despite the severity, it is getting better”, explains the family member.
The emergency surgical intervention at the Cruces hospital put an end to a complex operation aimed at saving the life of Álex García, an operation in which the participation of the air evacuation medical unit was key. The tourist from Biscay, resident in Sant Sebastià for years, had traveled to Thailand last February with his wife and entered a hospital in Bangkok on the 25th of that month.
His health worsened in the following weeks, until he was close to death, and the family tried to get him to return on their own, even hiring a medical plane, but all attempts failed. At the same time, the family chose to launch a micro-patronage with the aim of raising money to cover the high costs of the hospitalization and the directed attempts to get him to return.
The matter reached the media and, from there, the family got a media speaker that allowed them to probe the possibilities of having a medicalized plane from the army, and finally get the reaction of Defence.
Minister Margarita Robles gave the go-ahead to the dispatch of a medical plane, due to the “seriousness and exceptional nature of the case”, and a complex operation was launched, made up of 11 people, including – there are anesthetists, intensivists, critical care nurses and medical technicians in air evacuation.
When they arrived in Bangkok on Saturday, the specialists assessed the state of health of Álex García and appreciated that there were possibilities of repatriating him. On the plane, the physiological conditions forced a change in the therapeutic strategy and they chose to remove the tube that accompanied him and sedate him. The changes paid off. “He arrived in Spain better than we found him in Thailand. It’s been a lot of work,” Pilar Salvador, lieutenant colonel and doctor who treated Álex García, explained to the media. In 48 hours since he left Torrejón de Ardoz, the plane returned and the young man arrived at the hospital in Cruces.
Now Álex García faces a complicated recovery in this hospital that will take time. “They don’t give us any deadline. Everything depends on the evolution, which is positive. This is the most important thing, and it will be much easier at home”, concludes Rubén.
