Cambodia crash victim expected back today

The young woman stranded in Cambodia after a nasty traffic accident, is expected home this afternoon accompanied by paramedics from the Malta Red Cross who stepped in to help her.

The happy ending comes after days of anxiety for her family who found that the costs to move the uninsured girl to another area where she could get proper medical attention were too high for them to afford.

Lisa Gatt, 25, was riding pillion on the back of a motorcycle on April 7 when she crashed. All she told her relatives was that she heard a loud noise and everything went black. Unconscious, she was taken to a nearby clinic, where she regained consciousness hours later in extreme pain. Her thigh bone was broken and one of her hands was so swollen she could barely see her fingers.

Having travelled to Cambodia with no insurance, Ms Gatt was now facing hefty medical bills. Surgery to pin her thigh bone back in place came with a €2,000 price tag, money her family had to borrow and wire to her. What's more, the small clinic in a rural village in Cambodia where she underwent surgery was not equipped to treat her properly and the bill to fly her and give her additional treatment ran into a hefty €25,000.

Eventually, the Red Cross stepped in to send paramedics to bring her back from the clinic, which agreed to keep her under observation until their arrival.

"Lisa did not get travel insurance before she left. She left in a hurry and was unaware of the dangers. She made a mistake as many other do and let this be a lesson to everyone," her sister, Lia, said.