A dream vacation to celebrate a well-earned retirement turned into a nightmare for a Greenfield Park man.
Last month, 71-year-old Bruce Wayne Kobuke was vacationing with his wife on a beach on Kona Island in Hawaii when disaster struck — a large wave came out of nowhere and ended up slamming him to the ground, fracturing three of the vertebrae in his neck. Later, doctors would find out he had suffered severe damage to his spinal cord.
He managed to keep his head above water as two other waves crashed into him, and a lifeguard somehow managed to bring him out of the water.
He was later airlifted to a hospital in Honolulu, but is now paralyzed from the shoulders down. Making matters worse, he also developed pneumonia because of the salt water he inhaled while on the beach.
Last week, Kobuke was returned to Montreal, and is now at in the intensive care ward at Sacré-Coeur Hospital.
His family has set up a GoFundMe page to pay for the medical bills he incurred in Hawaii. His son, Ben Kobuke, told the Journal de Montréal that his father did have an insurance policy, and that his mother double-checked with the insurance company before leaving on the trip, but later, they were surprised to learn that the company wouldn't pay out for his accident — apparently, there were some restrictions because he was over age 70.
The family doesn't yet know the exact cost, but the Journal report suggests it could be more than $600,000. Ben Kobuke told the paper the helicopter trip to the hospital in Honolulu alone cost about $40,000. He was also charged $25,000 for an MRI.
"While we don’t know the full extent of the costs yet, we realize that these will be enormous," he and his brother Nathan wrote on the GoFundMe page. "Over and above the costs associated with his hospitalization and his repatriation back to Canada, our father will also require specialized home care and equipment, along with necessary home modifications to help him navigate through his day-to day activities."
The brothers say the medical bills are still "under negotiation".
So far, the page has raised more than $43,000.