An Australian couple has been left with a huge medical bill after their young son’s seemingly innocuous fall led to him having to undergo emergency surgery in a Mexican hospital.
Harry, aged seven, was walking in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, on February 5 with his dad, Ryan Lomax, and two younger siblings when he had a ‘slight fall’ while jumping in between concrete slabs and winding himself.
While everything seemed OK at first, alarm bells started to ring for Harry’s mum Danielle when her seven-year-old started vomiting and became dizzy, disorientated and pale.
Mr and Ms Lomax rushed Harry to a hospital in Cabo where a CT scan revealed the fall had perforated his spleen and had caused fluid to start seeping into his abdomen.
The family moved to Mexico from Perth in March, 2022 after Ms Lomax stopped her career as a banker to start up her own e-commerce website and work remotely.
Harry(pictured), aged seven, has had to be rushed to a Mexican hospital after a seemingly innocuous fall onto his abdomen lead to a potentially life-threatening injury
Ms Lomax described Harry as an energetic and active boy, chalking up his fall to ‘another slip’.
‘It was nothing out of the ordinary for him. He got up bit winded and said he was fine and continued to walk,’ she told news.com.au.
‘I brought them home and after I returned from grocery shopping, Harry was in bed vomiting, Ryan tried to help him to the toilet but he just fell.
‘I took one look at him and knew something was not right.’
Harry’s spleen was beyond repair and had leaked around 600ml of blood into his abdomen, leading to doctors performing an emergency, 4.5 hour splenectomy to remove the damaged organ.
The operation was a success and Harry spent the next six days in hospital, returning home on February 11.
‘If we didn’t get him to hospital in time, if his spleen continued to bleed into his body, he would have died,’ Ms Lomax said.
Henry’s mother, Danielle Lomax (left), knew that something was wrong when Henry started to go pale and became dizzy and disorientated
Harry is now on the mend after a harrowing few days in hospital
‘It all happened so quickly and I was honestly praying they would bring my baby back because I didn’t think he was coming back.’
The spleen regulates the levels of platelets and red and white blood cells in someone’s body, and with it now removed, Harry is at a small risk of developing severe infections.
Ms Lomax believed that the travel or trauma insurance they’d bought would cover the medical bills, however their travel policy had lapsed in December.
Their trauma insurance also deemed the accident not ‘traumatic’ enough to cover.
The Lomax family had to use a large chunk of their life savings to personally cover the medical bills, which quickly hit $25,000.
‘Do I regret not double checking the travel insurance renewal I’m sure I did in December? S*** yes! Can I change it? Nope,’ Ms Lomax wrote on Facebook.
She has since used Harry’s experience as a warning for fellow travellers to make sure their insurance is up to date and will cover them.
‘If you are travelling, have insurance. If you think you do, double check. You might not,’ she wrote.
A GoFundMe was set up for the family by parents at Harry’s former school in Perth, raising more than $8,000 of its $15,000 goal in just two weeks.
A CT scan (pictured) revealed he had ruptured his spleen, and without the immediate treatment and removal of his spleen he could’ve lost his life
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