BP - Injured woman coming home from Kenya

From my archive of press clippings:

Bristol Press


Injured woman coming home from Kenya

Monday, August 3, 2009 10:50 PM EDT

By DIANE CHURCH


STAFF WRITER


BRISTOL — With some help from a U.S. senator and two congressman, Dawn Cole, the Bristol resident who has been in a Kenyan hospital since she was injured in a May 15 car accident, is finally coming home.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"The family has been battling to get the injured woman home since the accident.

Letters from the offices of U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and U.S. Reps. John Larson, D-1st District, and Chris Murphy, D-5th District, helped persuade the U.S. State Department to finally give her a Repatriation Loan so she could come home via a med-evac jet, a trip which could cost more than $140,000. Cole could not ride in a commercial aircraft because of her injuries."

"Cole still owes the Kenyan hospital $70,000 in medical bills and the flight home will cost between $140,000 and $180,000, her brother said

Her said he has already started the process of signing his sister up for Social Security disability."

"`The United States government will not pay the expenses of a citizen injured abroad, or for their return, but the State Department will help make travel arrangements."

"Just four days before her scheduled return, she was in a car crash, which paralyzed her. A medi-vac aircraft flew her to Kenya and her family began getting bills.

Most of the money she earned is missing, her brother said. What he could find was sent to the hospital."

&

"Dawn did not have travelers’ insurance and, since her assignment with KBR was up, she wasn’t insured through them. Doctors and officials said she would do better if she were home in the United States. A relative who visited Dawn in Kenya told Brier Cole that the hospital was not up to American standards of care and sanitation."