Am I being nasty..

[coolma]

..or do I feel a bit about the girl who has broken her back in Corfu and is asking for public donations to get home for treatment because she didn't have holiday insurance? Surely, nowdays, insurance is an absolute essential for travelling? I expect I'm being horrible but I really think it's a bt much...

I don't know as I haven't read the news yet but if she didn't take out insurance then you are not being nasty at all.

I bloody hate the way a certain section of society start bleating for handouts as a result of their stupidity

Having said that, I hope she is OK

I won't be sending a donation, however

I also hope she is OK but agree, surely you would automatically get holiday insurance when travelling abroad.

apparently the donations have reached their target.

they did not tkae out insurance as they thought their E1 card or whatever it is covered them, according to Sky news.

you can argue they should have checked, but sounds like a mistake, rather than winging it with no insurance

poor woman has broken her back and needs to get to teh UK. what do you think she should do?

sell her house?

so i think you are being a bit unkind, if they genuintely thought they were covered

It is a real shame for her but I have been on loads of holidays and forked out for travel insurance every time but never made a claim. It is just not worth the risk of not buying insurance.

Besides I have donated any spare cash this month for the Pakistan floods. I hope she raises the money she needs though.

A broken back is a terrible price to pay though for not buying the insurance. It may be her fault and she may have tried to save money by not buying it in the first place but surely she deserves some compassion.

no, she didn't break her back because she didn't buy travel insurance

she broke her back in an accident and was very stupid not to have insurance in the first place

we could all do that, couldn't we ?

I mean why bother with anything ? Burn your house down...get everything replaced for nowt. Crash your car ?...get the repairs done via Joe Public

it maes a mockery of honest people who try to do the right thing, tbh

I am a bit brassic myself at the moment, would never skimp on this though and certainly would not expect handouts

saw this on GMTV today. Did anyone else see it when the lady presenter (cant remember her name) couldn't carry on speaking and was crying???

Ok, fine, if a relative of yours is too dimwitted to buy insurance then let them rot in a hospital abroad to teach them a lesson.

Won't be doing that again, will they?

eh ? crying wny ?

I read that the reason they didn't have insurance was because the honeymoon was a gift from family and they didn't know about it until the last minute. They didn't think to organise it and thought the E111 would be enough.

She's broken her back. She could be stupid enough to represent her country at stupid and I'd still feel sorry for her. Yes she should have had insurance. We all make errors of judgment, it's just that most of us get away with them most of the time.

Surely if you had a bad accident overseas and were uninsured the onus should be on yourself or your family to raise the money? Why the expectation that complete strangers would give you the money to do it?

I do feel sorry for her, nobody would wish an accident on anybody, but she was very shortsighted.

I don't think she actually needs to get back to the uk. She wants to because they seem to think the medical care will be better and they can't speak Spanish.

This happened to a friend of mine when she was 18. Fell off a balcony and broke her back in Spain. She was permanently paralysed from the neck down. She was treated in a Spanish hospital until she was well enough to travel and then she was flown home although iirr it was on an air ambulance so even more expensive. Thankfully she had taken out proper insurance even though she was only 18 which paid for it.

scurry, I doubt very much that anyone "is rotting in a hospital somewhere"

the EHIC card entitles you to perfectly adequate, and often life-saving, treatment abroad in the EU

all of the treatment available is on a par with the NHS...much of it is very superior

ie. it ensures you get what the locals would get

what it doesn't pay for is repatriation

why should strangers have to pay for that ?

it is down to the family/personal savings to sort out such idiotic risk-taking

If the holiday was a present then the family were bloody stupid not to get insurance to go with it, and they should be bailing her out, not asking for members of the public to do it.

yes, trill

I don't particularly want to bail someone out for their own short sightedness ...

I guess no-one is forced to contribute

it rankles, though

ok so she is getting treatment and good treatment by the sounds of things. the only reason she wants home is because it is 'home' not because she isn't being treated. IMO she/her family should have to raise the money for that.

Yes, they were muppets not to get insurance which would have been pretty cheap for two twenty-somethings in a European beach destination. But they didn't get insurance and they need to get home somehow. At least it's got some publicity for Why Travel Insurance Is Important.

well, of course

everybody thinks it won't happen to them

then they have to reconsider from a forrin hospital bed