A Calgary family says they’re struggling to bring back a severely injured loved one from Mexico to Canada, as their insurance company say he is not fit to fly.
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Trevor Cockrell, 55, suffered multiple broken bones and a collapsed lung after he and his family were rear-ended by a car on a highway in Mexico on Feb. 16.
He has since undergone three surgeries — one of which lasted nine hours — and has since left the hospital’s intensive-care unit. He is now in a maternity ward, where he receives regular one-on-one care, according to his wife, Renee.
The insurance company needs to approve the request to airlift a patient and find a medevac willing to transport him. The family must also have a doctor willing to receive him in Calgary and treat him, “which we have,” Renee said, at Foothills Medical Centre.
She said all seven of her husband’s surgeons in Mexico have cleared him for travel, as has the receiving doctor in Calgary. But the insurance company has declared Trevor “not fit to fly,” with the decision made by their doctor.
The family is insured by Greenshield Insurance.
Her daughter, Marissa, has already flown back to Canada and is living with her best friend’s family. Cooper, their son, was to fly back from Mexico this week with two friends who had flown to Mexico to donate blood for her husband’s surgery.
Trevor, she said, is conscious and talking, she said.
“He’s a really funny guy,” she added. But it’s been difficult for him to communicate with staff who don’t always speak English. “He gets a little bit frustrated. He just wants to go home.”
Renee said she had been on the phone with the insurance company for two days, often waiting on the phone for more than an hour. “I thought I got a gentleman who said, ‘I can read your claim but I’ll give you your case manager’s name, but she doesn’t have a contact number and she’s on lunch’,” she said. “I said, ‘well that’s kind of unacceptable. We really need some help here.’”
Everyone else is physically unaffected, she said, despite being in the vehicle when the accident happened.
The family had flown to Mexico for a vacation, along with two family friends. On Sunday, everyone piled into a van to go tour a town. While on the highway, their driver noticed a car accident ahead and pulled off to the side, onto a dirt road.
“A semi came flying up and crashed into all the people in front of us on the high way . . . we think in that process, he hit a car into the rear end of our taxi,” Renee said. Her husband and son had been sitting in the back seat of the car, while she, her daughter and their friends were in the front.
Pictures of the van show the back demolished. Everyone else sustained either no or minor injuries. Jeanette, Renee said, had a concussion and Marissa sustained a whiplash.
“The rest of us literally walked away from that accident,” she said. “My husband got all the injuries.”
The surgeries stopped internal bleeding, fixed his hips and stemmed threats of kidney failure. He needed blood transfusions, Renee said, and blood supplies are hard to come by in Mexico. “It’s not a blood bank like what we have in Canada,” she said.
Sean, one of the friends who had been travelling to Mexico with the family, offered to donate blood for Trevor’s recovery. Two friends also flew in from Canada, after finding they were a blood type match.
“We have an absolute army of friends that are our extended family and they have been amazing,” she said.
A picture of the car that rear-ended the van shows the vehicle smashed on all sides.
According to Renee, the driver of the car was killed. He was the only one in the car.
The shock of the accident hasn’t yet “hit home” for her and her family, she said. “I think we’re all just running on adrenalin. It’s just, get Trevor home, keep Trevor alive, get Trevor home.”
And when he does, the road doesn’t end there. “Because they were able to repair the hips, one leg is really good and he can actually put pressure .. on the right side,” she said.
“The left side is where all his damage occurred, where the lung collapsed. And that one’s going to need a lot of occupational therapy and physical therapy,” Renee said, as well as additional surgery.
To support the family , Stephanie Campbell, who has known Renee and Trevor for years, has started a GoFundMe with a goal of raising $65,000 for the Cockrells.
She said she got to know the couple through hockey. “He’s loyal, he’s giving, he’s compassionate, hard-headed in the best possible ways,” she said. We just love him dearly.”
He called her on Monday, she said. “I couldn’t stop crying my eyes out because it was so nice to hear his voice.”
Every year, Trevor organizes a 16-team hockey tournament, which his son participates in. “One of the first things he said when he was conscious was ‘we need to get this tournament done,’ ” Campbell said, with a chuckle.
The team has taken it over since the accident and have been planning it in Trevor’s honour, Renee added. “But he’s been a little bit concerned that the things he does are falling through the cracks,” she said laughing.
“”He’s a really energetic, but really opinionated and stubborn guy,” Campbell said. “And what’s funny is that that’s truly, I actually think, what has kept him alive.”