John Yost, a Footprints teacher in a public school in Gangwondo Province, recently broke his back while paragliding. He needs to raise roughly USD 5,000 in order to pay his hospital bills. Please consider a donation of 5 or 10 dollars to help out a fellow Footprints teacher in need – you can read more about John’s situation and donate here: http://www.jcyost.net/
From the page "Info on John's Surgery":
About three weeks ago, on December 6, I had a paragliding accident and broke my back. It was totally my fault and I was an idiot.
What happened was that a paraglider pilot crashed into the trees in front of me. And they crashed where no one but me knew where they were.
So, I circled around them, got a GPS bearing on their location, told them to wait (like they had a choice as they hung in the trees), and tried to get down fast to get help.
Well, to lose altitude quickly I did wingovers, which are acrobatic maneuvers. I’ve done hundreds of them, but never so low, and I came out of my last one too low. My glider pitched up, I fell outof the sky from about 30 feet (10 meters), and landed on my butt.
. . .
We got to the hospital and took X-rays. The doctors said there were no problems at all, and I could just stay at their clinic taking pain killers and if I didn’t get better in a few days, they’d send me to a bigger hospital at that time. Thank God my friends didn’t believe it.
Instead we took another ambulance ride to a bigger hospital where they had better equipment and I assume more experienced doctors. They took X-rays there too, except this time they found a compression fracture in my first lumbar vertebrae and wanted to do an MRI the next day to see how much damage there was to my soft tissue.
Then, depending on the MRI, I might have to have surgery.
Read both posts for more details. Currently the "Info on John's Surgery" page accommodates PayPal payments, but not transfers from domestic bank accounts. If there are any updates regarding this, I'll pass them along.
5 comments:
I wish him the best of luck (and care), and I don’t want to come across as Ebenezer himself (I already gave to the South Korean Salvation Army and to my local seal men), but this is getting a bit old. No mention of insurance, again. And if the paragliding company (pilot crashing) screwed up, aren’t they covered by some sort of insurance just in case of accidents like these? Hell, I know our hagwon had to put every kid and teacher on our coverage when we just went to Caribbean Bay and still we had to suit up everyone in life vests/jackets anyway. I think we were more in danger of being crushed to death by all the people in the water (and even outside of it) as opposed to actually going belly up.
If he's on an E-series visa (or any visa), wouldn't he have had to be part of the national health insurance scheme? (This happened in South Korea, right?)
The NHIC scheme is universal health care, but it's not blanket coverage, so some unusual things are largely out of pocket, though much cheaper than they would be in the States (try getting back surgery for $5K).
IOW, maybe he was covered. But I think John makes a good point about insurance provided by the paragliding company themselves. I'd want to know that they exhausted that route first. This is no Michael Robinson case, it appears.
Instead we took another ambulance ride to a bigger hospital where they had better equipment and I assume more experienced doctors.
I'd also add that for anyone who thinks they've got something unusual or urgent, it's almost always best to go to a big hospital first (particularly a corporate hospital — Samsung or Hyundai — or a university hospital). They're all over the place.
Compared to local clinics and smaller hospitals, they are far more likely to have state-of-the-art equipment, doctors well-versed on the latest procedures and information, and a staff willing and able to try to muddle through communication with someone who isn't fluent in Korean.
Think of local clinics and small hospitals as like the pediatrician you went to when you were a kid: adequate for finding out what's wrong with you and referring you to someone specialized for a big problem. But if you have something you're already pretty sure is a big problem (and falling 10 meters would count as that), just go straight to the emergency room of a big hospital.
Emergency Room care does not cost much more than regular care (if it costs more at all), and they're used to doing triage to determine who's serious and who's not.
Don't paraglide in Korea. Don't bungee jump in Korea. Unless you are from another planet, you know these "people" cannot drive, fly,ski,walk etc.without crashing. I hope you have a full recovery. Next time, try inline skating or something.
I have the same lines of thought with John for this one. But nevertheless, i sincerely wish that this guy gets a speedy recovery.
I wish the guy a speedy recovery.
But I am going to be a Grinch and ask, "Where is his family? Are they helping him out?" I know if I was in his position, my father would mortgage the house to help me. Hell, my whole extended family would collect money.
Maybe we expats need to get private insurance (yes, on our own) to cover what "government care" doesn't. There are companies out there who do provide health insurance.
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