Friends raise cash to airlift bride injured on honeymoon
The family of a bride who could be paralysed after falling from her honeymoon hotel balcony said today she had waited four days to see a specialist.
Carrie-Anne Dudbridge, 27, from Bromley, broke her spine in three places when she lost her footing and fell 20 feet from the first floor in Corfu on Sunday. Relatives claimed today she had yet to be seen by an orthopaedic surgeon able to assess the severity of her injuries.
She and husband Michael, 29, are stranded on the Greek island because they cannot afford the £16,000 cost of airlifting her home for the treatment she needs. Family and friends are frantically trying to raise the money.
Her best friend Zoe Bayntun, 27, from Sevenoaks, said: "The hospital is really understaffed. The doctors there have hinted at Michael to bring her home. With the language barrier we don't even know how bad her injuries are."
Mrs Dudbridge, 27, a secretary at Foster Park Primary School, Lewisham, was injured only two days before the couple were due to come home. They married on July 31 and guests surprised them at the reception by handing over tickets for a honeymoon.
She is unable to eat and can only move her hands and feet. Her husband, a builder, said: "I've not left her side. I've nowhere to go, all my luggage is under the hospital bed. We've nothing, all I have is 50."
Of the accident, he said: "My wife went outside to get some fresh air. Next thing I heard was a big thud, I looked out and she was not there. She was on the grass so I ran down, she tried to get up but I told her not to move."
The couple did not buy travel insurance, believing they would be covered under the European Health Insurance Card scheme, but it does not pay for repatriation by air ambulance.
Joanna Sukiennik, operations manager of air-ambulance firm Mediaviation, which is helping organise the fundraising effort, said: "Repatriation costs could reach £16,000 as Carrie-Anne needs to be flown back lying down in a plane with stabilisers."
More than £3,000 had been donated by today.
Donate at www.mediaviation.com
