Charleville native Jack Callaghan made the emotional appeal for his mother during an interview on The Opinion Line with PJ Coogan on Cork\u2019s 96FM yesterday.<\/p>\n
Mr Callaghan spoke about his mother Carol who is currently fighting to recover in a Spanish hospital after suffering a sudden cardiac arrest while on holiday.<\/p>\n
Jack also spoke about the family\u2019s urgent mission to get Carol home to Ireland for specialist rehabilitation \u2014 a journey that requires an air ambulance costing between \u20ac40,000 and \u20ac50,000, a sum their insurance will not cover.<\/p>\n
In a poignant interview, Mr Callaghan said his 58-year-old mother Carol was out shopping with her friends in Alicante, Spain and suffered a cardiac arrest. \u201cShe was left untreated until the paramedics got there. They did CPR and brought her back with the defibrillator, then rushed her to ICU. She\u2019s been there since. It’s a slow process, but getting better \u2014 and can get a lot better if we can get her back to Ireland as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jack said his mother woke up after a \u2018week\u2019 in a coma and has been slowly improving ever since. \u201cWhen we first got to Spain \u2014 this happened on a Thursday and we arrived Friday morning \u2014 doctors told us she might not make it. If she did, she could be in a vegetative state or have severe brain damage. They told us to get family over as soon as possible. As days went on, the scans improved.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe outlook was still serious, but we didn\u2019t care how long the road would be \u2014 as long as there was a road. She woke up after a week in a coma and has been slowly improving since. My stepfather, my sister and I take turns so she\u2019s never alone. It\u2019s tough out there, but she\u2019d do the same for us. She has the biggest heart, we just need her home,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The extent of Carol\u2019s injuries means she will require long-term rehabilitation and specialist care.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, her travel insurance has refused to cover the cost of getting her home to Ireland for the treatment she urgently needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hospital in Spain has done all it can,\u201d said Jack who outlined that his mother cannot fly home without intensive medical care during the journey. \u201cShe still has a tracheostomy and needs intensive care during the journey. She needs an intensive rehab centre in Ireland. We\u2019ve been quoted \u20ac40,000 to \u20ac50,000 for an air ambulance. These companies need payment up front, and we just don\u2019t have that lying around.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family has launched a GoFundMe page to help bring Carol home after the devastating accident.<\/p>\n
The local community has rallied around in huge support of Carol and her family.<\/p>\n
At the time of writing, 863 donations have been made and over \u20ac48,000 has been raised so far.<\/p>\n
Jack paid tribute to everyone who has contributed. \u201cThe local community\u2019s been incredible. Charleville GAA, neighbours, friends, but we still have a bit to go before we can book the flight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jack also used the opportunity to urge everyone to learn basic CPR. \u201cEvery minute counts. It could mean the difference between life and death. We were lucky Mam was in a busy place. If it had happened somewhere quiet, she might not be here.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charleville native Jack Callaghan made the emotional appeal for his mother during an interview on The Opinion Line…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,2358,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-1999","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-john-bohane","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}