A campaign has been launched to raise money to fly a 32-year-old British man, who was left paralyzed from the waist down after an accident in Colombia, back to the UK.
Daniel Eley was injured while diving in a river in southern Colombia, near the Brazilian border, on New Years Day. He is currently in hospital in Bogota, but his insurance does not cover the £90,000 (US$145,000) cost of flying him back to the UK in an air ambulance.
The campaign by his friends and family on Facebook and other internet sites has raised £22,000 so far.
Eley had worked in Latin America for several years, most recently on an 18-month volunteer project in Guatemala, and had planned to begin a teaching job in Cali in the new year.
“He is well aware of what’s being done to help him. It’s done a huge amount for his morale and frankly I think it’s the reason he survived. It’s curious that out of this something quite inspiring is happening,” Diana Clift, the Facebook group’s founder, told UK paper the Daily Telegraph.
