A SCOTTISH dad was left lying in his apartment for days and forced to drink sink water to survive after suffering a stroke while on holiday in Thailand.
Bill, 64, from Dunbar, sparked a desperate search online after he failed to get back in touch with family while abroad last month.
But they were left horrified after discovering he had suffered a stroke in his apartment and been left alone for eight days.
Daughter Fiona Gunn, 31, from Glasgow, told The Scottish Sun: “He was out in Thailand on holiday and when he’s away he usually texts my auntie, his sister, everyday.
“Then on the 22nd, he stopped texting altogether. We sent him emails and whatsapp messages but the messages weren’t being delivered and we were getting no response to anything so we knew something wasn’t quite right.
“On the Friday of that week, my auntie contacted me again to say she was getting really worried, that this was out of character as he had been texting her everyday for coming on two years now.
“We didn’t have an address for him, which is bad in hindsight, but we knew he had definitely gone back to Bangkok on the Friday but apart from that we didn’t have anything else.”
Fiona told how she had reached out on Facebook to see if anyone had any information on his whereabouts.
From there she managed to get in touch with a bar he regularly visited while staying in Bangkok.
Fiona explained: “Eventually I got into contact with a woman from Bangkok. I showed her picture of my dad with a waitress and she recognised the uniform.
“I told another woman who was Thai what the bar was and she went in to speak to them and they said that he usually went there every night and they’d been worried about him because usually when he flies back to the UK he tells them that he’s away.
“One of the girls knew which apartment he was in but not the number and so she got in touch with the condo manager. The manager was really upset because she had been there on the Monday and knocked the door for cleaning and head what she thought was him talking to friends, but it actually must have been him calling for help because he had a stroke.
“The manager managed to open the door enough to see he was lying on the floor. They managed to break the door down.”
She added: “He was in a really bad way, the apartment was horrendous.
“It had been eight days since his stroke and he had been left in the apartment without any food or water. He’d pulled the u bend off the sink so he could have water and a couple of things had been pulled off the kitchen counter so we’re presuming he’d tried to make noise to get attention.”
Bill is now recovering in a private hospital in Bangkok.
But when they tried to sort out his return home, Fiona discovered that her dad’s travel insurance was void.
She said: “When I went to get his travel insurance to get his hospital bills paid for, I contacted RBS who his travel insurance is through.
“They said if you’re gonna be travelling for more than 31 days you have to let them know and this is day 37. So because of that his travel insurance is now void and any hospital bills are liable to the family.
“I contacted the consulate and basically they said the only way to raise the funds is to crowdfund or take a personal loan.”
Fiona has now set up a GoFundMe page in a bid to get enough money to get her dad home. Since setting up the page yesterday, Fiona has already started raised nearly £2,000 of her £10k target.
But it’s still not enough.
She added: “Basically what I’ve tried to do is get emergency power of attorney of his accounts. I never wanted to crowdfund because I feel like it’s begging a little. But I don’t think he’ll have enough money in his accounts.
“I’ve still got £3,000 to £4,000 in hospital bills to pay, the flight is £29,000, I was hoping if I could crowdfund £10,000, he would have some money, then between me and his sister we could raise the funds.”
Fiona has revealed Bill is recovering well in hospital, but she’s keen to get home soon.
She said: “He’s doing amazing. When he first got taken in, I have never seen a human alive that colour, he was so grey it was horrible to see especially when it’s your dad.
“Today they sent me a photo to show four nurses holding him up so he was able to stand up. When he first went in, he couldn’t speak at all, but now you can understand little by little what he’s trying to ask you, like when he’s getting home.”
She added: “It’s amazing people’s generosity, people I don’t even know as well. It’s really nice that people are so generous to someone they don’t know.”
To donate to Fiona’s cause, visit the GoFundMe page here.
