Brit beauty therapist, 21, paralysed after falling 60ft from balcony on holiday as family raise £75k to bring her home
A BRIT beauty therapist who was paralysed after falling 60ft from a balcony on holiday has returned home.
Maddi Neale-Shankster, 21, is finally back in the UK, weeks after the horror unfolded in Thailand on New Year's Eve.
The beauty therapist was left paralysed from the waist down after breaking her back, suffering two collapsed lungs and having ribs pierce her liver in the fall.
Maddi fell from a 60ft balcony and had been left stuck in a foreign hospital after her insurance company refused to pay the bill, reports.
But her family and friends managed to rally around and raise a whopping £75,000 to bring the 21-year-old back from Ko Pha-Ngan island.
Speaking to the last week, her mum Karen Moseley-Neale said: "Before the accident, I was on FaceTime to Maddi. An hour later, we got a phone call from her partner and all I could hear is Maddi screaming in the background and the sirens blaring.
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"Since the fall we are now coping with the realisation that potentially Maddi may never walk again."
Her family set up a fundraiser which they said was used to cover "all hospital fees, repatriation and transportation costs back to the UK".
It has now raised £76,000 for the Coventry 21-year-old.
Karen warned others to check their insurance cover carefully, adding: "Maddi took holiday insurance while in Thailand for 10,000 baht (£247).
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"She thought it was £10,000... I'd hate for anybody to be in this position."
When Maddi's GoFundMe page hit its target her family wrote: "So today we wanted to make everyone aware that we have reached the target set and now have more than enough to cover all hospital fees, repatriation and transportation costs back to the UK.
"We have decided to turn off the donations for this reason.
"If you still wanted to help out directly there are several fundraisers taking place in Coventry which will go towards Maddi’s rehabilitation and help towards her living costs until she is hopefully able to walk and return to work.
"Once again we can not thank you all so very much for your generosity, we truly never expected this to happen so quickly and we are forever going to be eternally grateful."
The Foreign Office said it was providing assistance.