The army medical plane that took off yesterday from Torrejón de Ardoz to assist the Spanish tourist Álex García landed this Saturday morning in Bangkok, around 9, local time. According to what consular sources have told his mother, the crew and medical team - made up of eleven doctors - have gone to a hotel to take a brief rest and regain strength after fifteen hours of flight, before proceeding to their complex and risky evacuation. The patient, 36 years old, has been in the Thai ICU for two months due to acute pancreatitis and his situation is critical.
Yesterday, Friday, Tere had just received a call from her daughter-in-law announcing the good news when she responded to La Vanguardia that, now, the plane was confirmed. The sky opened up for her son, Alexander García Galas, although his ability to express himself is very limited right now. Bedridden since February 20 in an ICU in Thailand, first in Chiang Mai and for a month in Bangkok, today a plane from the Aeroevacuation Medical Unit (Umaer) came to his rescue.
As the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, had announced shortly before, the Air Force aircraft departed at 5 in the afternoon from the Torrejón de Ardoz base, with the objective of repatriating the tourist bedridden by necrotizing pancreatitis.
Robles has assured that it is a "very difficult air evacuation", so five doctors and four military nurses will travel "absolutely prepared to ensure the transfer of this person." Specifically, anesthetists, intensivists, critical care nurses and air evacuation health technicians.
Last night, early morning in Thailand, the embassy in Bangkok still had no news of the landing and return time. A direct commercial flight would take about 12 hours.
The patient, Alexander García Galas, born in Basauri (Bizkaia) 36 years ago and a resident of Lasarte (Gipuzkoa), is admitted to the ICU of the elite Samitivej hospital in the Thai capital.
His condition is extremely serious, as this correspondent was able to verify in situ, on Thursday afternoon, in a floor – the second – as vulgar as the third is noble – diplomats, senior executives, Japanese with insurance that is not of this type. world...– although with prices per night almost as outrageous.
The Basque Government reported that the plane will land at the Bilbao airport, where an advanced life support ambulance from the Osakidetza (Basque Health Service) will be waiting for him at the foot of the runway to take him to the Cruces de Barakaldo hospital, closer than that of Galdakao, “which is the one that touches us,” according to the mother.
Álex and his brother are in charge of a small family business of children's events and fair attractions, inherited from their father, now deceased. After two frustrated attempts at repatriation, one through insurance on a regular airline and the other on a medical plane hired by his relatives, the spokesperson for the García family, his cousin Janire Galas, requested the intervention of Umaer on Monday.
“We cannot afford any failure,” said Minister Robles. Tere, mother of courage, gives thanks and hopes that her son manages to leave Thailand the third time – this time with her and another daughter-in-law – at the limit of his physical and material resources, after a vacation with his wife Usoa that became nightmare. “He is stabilized within gravity. What will come, we do not know.”
