After falling on a cruise ship and suffering broken hips and elbows, a 64-year-old Virginia woman spent nine days “stranded” in an Indonesian hospital whose staff admitted they were not equipped to treat her injuries, her daughter said.
Carnival Cruise staff aboard the Luminosa determined that Denise Hammond would need surgical intervention beyond her capacity after taking x-rays on board on Oct. 4, her daughter, Rachel Matthews, told Fox News Digital.
Four days later, Hammond was transferred to Siloam Hospital in Manado.
There, her daughter said, it became clear that her nightmare was far from over.
Initially, Matthews said, her family was disappointed that Hammond’s long-awaited cruise was cut short.
The month-long Carnival cruise began in Seattle and was scheduled to call at “several ports in Asia and the Pacific,” ultimately ending in Australia.
So far, Matthews said, his mother had visited six ports in Japan and the ship was headed to Indonesia when it sank.
Denise Hammond, 64, is pictured at a stop on her Carnival cruise ship before falling and fracturing her hip and elbow on October 4. GoFundMe
“I mean, it’s been scary. When he first fell, at first we thought, ‘Oh, man, that’s horrible.’ But we never thought he would have trouble getting the medical care he needs,” Matthews lamented.
Although Hammond was given an individual “VIP room” at the hospital, Matthews said, “the conditions of the hospital were really atrocious in terms of cleanliness… nothing you would expect from a hospital room in the United States or elsewhere.” of the world”.
There, a doctor told him that the hospital did not have the equipment to treat his broken bones. The medical professional “pulled” on Hammond’s arm, her daughter claimed, and “tried to make her walk on her leg.”
Denise Hammond disembarked six times on the month-long cruise before suffering the injury, her daughter said. Wikipedia
“They were not doing scans or blood tests, nor administering any type of anticoagulant. … We were worried that she was going to die in that hospital,” Matthews said. “Every time he talked to her, she was terrified. She said she felt alone, abandoned. She was afraid to die [there] and never leave. “It was really scary.”
Siloam Hospital could not immediately be reached for comment.
Although Hammond frequently travels on cruise ships and always purchases travel insurance, Matthews said, he began hitting dead ends in his efforts to arrange a medical evacuation.
Denise Hammond’s daughter said her mother felt ‘alone’ [and] abandoned” and was “afraid of dying and never leaving” the Manado hospital. Raquel Mateo
The family began working with the U.S. Embassy, which began linking them with transportation companies to transport Hammond to the nearest hospital that could treat her.
The closest such center, the family was told, was nearly 4,000 miles away, in Bangkok, Thailand.
The first transportation company charged $60,000 to take Hammond there, Matthews said, while the hospital needed a $40,000 down payment before she arrived.
Denise Hammond finally arrived at a Bangkok hospital that treated her on Friday, her daughter told Fox News Digital. Rachel Matthews
None of the payments covered Hammond’s entire procedure.
“We were so desperate to get her out of there and the insurance company didn’t help us,” Matthews said.
Orthopedic surgeons who had previously worked with Hammond, 64, in Virginia helped the family draft letters to their insurance company, whose name the family declined to reveal, citing their ongoing negotiation, urging it to expedite assistance.
A Virginia congressman even sent a letter to the company on Hammond’s behalf, urging it to help the injured woman, Matthews said.
“She’s facing a lot more intensive surgery than she would have been nine days ago if she had had surgery when she should have,” Matthews said. “Those injuries are healing incorrectly.”
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As of Wednesday, after the national news learned of Hammond’s story, her insurance company is helping her with transportation costs.
But her family expects her medical expenses to exceed her insurance limit and must contend with the costs incurred to transport her luggage back to the U.S., data charges and “just all those extra costs associated with being stranded in a foreign country,” Matthews said.
On Friday, Hammond arrived at Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital for his initial evaluation, Matthews said.
“My mother’s body has faced incredible stress and mortal danger due to this long and unacceptable delay in medical treatment,” Matthews wrote in an update on the family’s GoFundMe page, which had raised nearly $30,000 as of Friday. the afternoon. “We will not know until she is further evaluated what type of further damage has been caused by this negligence and how it will affect her long-term quality of life. Please pray that this damage is minimal.”
Carnival, whose press office could not immediately be reached, told USA Today that it has been in regular contact with Hammond and his family and is “glad” that their trip home is approaching.
Matthews said Hammond “isn’t sure if she will continue to travel like she has before.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn