California Woman Suffers Brain Injury Abroad Without Travel Insurance

A visit to Canada has left one San Francisco woman fighting for her life with serious brain injuries.  Courtney Canter collapsed down a long flight of stairs, and her doctors placed her in an induced coma for three weeks.  Though doctors are optimistic she is improving and could soon return home to California, Courtney is without travel insurance and is racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills.

Courtney flew to Canada to celebrate the New Year with her old friend Kyle Unrau.  However, on December 29, shortly after arriving at her friend’s apartment, Courtney mysteriously collapsed down the building’s long flight of stairs, and fractured her skull.  Courtney was placed into a coma to help her body heal, and after three weeks has returned to consciousness.
 
Kyle has remained at Courtney’s bedside for the majority of her recovery along with her father Ron, and Kyle says she doesn’t remember the fall.
 
“She was heading upstairs, and I was dozing off and then I heard a thud.  And opened the door, and she was lying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs.”

Ron Canter says he is grateful to the Royal Columbian Hospital as well as all of his daughter’s friends who flew to Canada to coax Courtney through the worst of her injury.  However, without travel insurance, Courtney’s hospital stay has cost the family hundreds of thousands of dollars in daily medical bills.  Ron says the air ambulance alone cost the family $10,000.  He is pleading for assistance from friends, family, and anyone else willing to donate money for his daughter’s treatment.   He says Courtney has health insurance at home in California, and he needs to get her home as soon as possible.
 
After recovering enough to speak, Courtney thanked her supporters and says she is preparing to go back to San Francisco as soon as she can.
 
“It is time to go home and just learn how to be a human again.”