A young Brit enjoying the holiday of a lifetime has been told she made never be able to walk again after a horror fall from a balcony during a holiday in Thailand.
Maddi Neale-Shankster, 21, was halfway through the three-week trip to Asia when she fell from the second floor of her accommodation.
The beautician from Coventry, West Midlands, has been left with spinal fractures and blood and fluid on her chest as she faces a battle to ever walk again.
She was staying in the tourist party hotspot of Ko Pha-Ngan when the accident happened.
Her mother, Karen Moseley-Neale, has flown out to Thailand to be by her daughter’s side.
Surgeons will decide if they will operate on her back once her chest is clear, the parent said.
Speaking to The Metro, she questioned the safety levels of the accommodation where her daughter was staying.
Photos showed how the balcony of the property was secured only by a low wooden bannister rail.
She said: “The prognosis isn’t good as she has fractures to her spine and there’s a chance she may never walk again - it’s devastating.
“The pictures we have of the balcony where she fell are outrageous, you would never get away with that in the UK.
“Maddi had been working hard to move into her own premises in the spring and had a bright and promising year ahead of her."
The situation was compounded by ambulance staff taking nearly 40 minutes to arrive – and she was allegedly pick-pocketed on the same night.
Her cards and money were stolen, and were only with her because the “security in their room was horrendous”.
She is currently being cared for at the Surat Thani International Hospital.
A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesman said: “We are providing assistance to the family of a British woman who has been hospitalised in Thailand.”
