Jade Bird, 33, was due to fly home from Tenerife when she contracted meningitis
Jade Bird, 33, fell critically ill at the airport(Image: Joanne McIver / SWNS)
A mum who was fighting for her life in hospital after suddenly falling ill in Tenerife’s airport has awoken from a coma, her family have said in an update posted on a fundraiser.
Jade Bird, 33, was due to fly home from Tenerife last Wednesday (March 18) but fell ill at the airport. In terrifying scenes for her family, she was rushed from the airport to hospital, where doctors found an infection in her brain that had developed into meningitis.
Jade, a carer from Abergele, was placed in an induced coma. Her sister-in-law Victoria flew to Spain to be by her side.
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She said: “She flew out to Tenerife with her boyfriend for a holiday. While they were there, she was complaining of earache, then she started being sick.
“When they got to the airport, she was unable to communicate and she was screaming in pain, so they took her to the hospital.
“When they got there, they did a CT scan and found she had an infection on her brain, so they transferred her to an ICU in the north of Tenerife, put her on a ventilator, and she’s been there ever since.
“They then found out that it’s turned into meningitis, and she’s been quite heavily sedated the last two or three days. There was concern of seizures and epilepsy, memory loss, paralysis – we still don’t know the full extent of all this right now, until she wakes up completely.”
Jade Bird, and her daughter(Image: Joanne McIver / SWNS)
Jade’s family said in a GoFundMe update she has now begun to come around and is ‘much more alert and aware of her surroundings’. However, she remains in hospital – and her family were quoted £46,000 for a medical evacuation back home, despite claiming she has appropriate insurance.
Jade, who has a young daughter named Skyla, will be moved to a neurological ward, where she will have a full assessment, with staff believing she will need to stay on IV antibiotics before she is able to travel home.
Victoria said: “Myself and her mum flew out the following morning after we found. At some point, me and her mum are going to get to a stage where we can’t afford to stay here, but how do we go home?
“The communication just isn’t there – there’s a language barrier and we only get updates once a day. It’s not something we can even comprehend right now.”
The family have launched a GoFundMe to cover the cost of Jade’s flight home, which has raised £12,000 so far. A link to the GoFundMe can be found here.
Victoria added: “It’s been really stressful. It’s been absolutely heartbreaking telling her daughter that she’s unable to see mummy because she’s in the hospital. We struggle every day and we just hope every day when we walk in to see her that she’s a bit more alert.”
The family said in a GoFundMe they have ‘a long road ahead’ but are thankful for the kindness of the public, and say they are prepared to do what it takes to get Jade back home safely.
They said: “We’re overwhelmed with all the kindness. People have been so thoughtful and everybody has pulled together to raise money to get Jade home and we don’t think that any words will ever thank them enough.”
A link to the GoFundMe can be found here.