The family of a man paralysed in a road accident in December is making an urgent appeal for funds to airlift him from Barbados to get medical treatment.
Kirtis Millar needs at least US$250 000 to treat his fractured cervical spine even after undergoing surgery here, his mother Patricia Jackman told The Nation.
She was asking for donations for Millar, a 30-year-old construction worker still hospitalised, and in the midst of his ordeal, also recovering from COVID-19.
“He needs to be taken abroad for medical treatment and he has to be airlifted because of his condition. He cannot go on a normal flight because of his spinal injury. The longer he stays the more likely it will become permanent. He needs the treatment, he really should be having it already, all now, but we don’t have the money,” she said.
Local health officials, she said, have recommended a hospital in Jacksonville, Florida, and the estimated cost – the final of which has not been tallied – also included the airlift.
There is an account at CIBC First Caribbean #1001216847 in her name with the transit code 00606 and the swiftcode FCIBBBBB.
Jackman, who lives in the UK, flew to Barbados to take care of her son whom she says “can’t do anything for himself”.
“I can’t display my true feelings in front of Kirtis because I don’t want to get Kirtis down. When I got the information I had a peace because of my Christian belief, but seeing him like this . . . If it was somebody else he would be around trying to help them whether it was family or friends, that is the kind of person he is,” she said.
She admitted that seeing her son’s condition has knocked her back a bit, but she has to press on seeking the help he desperately needs.
“He’s a get-up-andgo person. It is really a despairing feeling, but I try to keep up a positive face. He is positive, but I know inside he is feeling down. I am feeling it at certain points, but my faith is in God and that keeps me.
“I would just like people to come forward and help knowing that if it was somebody else he would be out there like me pushing, asking for help or giving of his own money,” Jackman said.
As she looks after her son, she said it’s difficult seeing him confined to the bed, but he maintains a cheerful face.
“I know he’s down, he’s very concerned that I am here having to deal with this stress of having to collect this money. He said ‘mum is there anything I can do’ which the doctors said ‘no’. He is feeling for others rather than himself.
Millar had been driving his car in the Pine area on December 18 when he collided with a pole. (AC)