Just when she thought she’d hit rock bottom.
A UK tourist in Montenegro sustained severe injuries after falling over 30 feet while taking a cliff-side selfie — only to be left sitting in her own feces by medics.
“I can only describe [the hospital] as medieval and grim,” Jenny Birch-Morgan, 61, told the Sun of the crappy ordeal, which occurred while she was vacationing with her daughter Omi in Budva.
The Brit had reportedly attempted to snap a selfie while posing at a scenic spot overlooking the picturesque Montenegro coastline. However, her high-altitude photo op went south after she slipped backwards and plummeted 33 feet onto jagged rocks below, fracturing her ribs, spine and ankle.
Thankfully, Birch-Morgan survived the plunge, and was subsequently rescued from the ravine by a Belgian good Samaritan who descended the cliff. Ninety minutes later, paramedics arrived and transported the victim to a hospital in the nation’s capital of Podgorica.
Unfortunately, her hospital stay proved as hellacious as the fall itself.
“I could not move my body, yet they refused to treat me, to wash me, I was scared to ask for help,” lamented Birch-Morgan of her alleged mistreatment, which she claims involved her being left sitting in her blood and feces for a week.
And that was only the tip of the iceberg. “I would call out for water, and they just pretended not to hear me, or understand me,” the embattled Brit told the Sun. “I had to get someone to smuggle the water in for me.”
Food, meanwhile, allegedly entailed one piece of stale bread each morning, which nurses unknowingly put on a table where she couldn’t reach it due to her incapacitated state. As the staff hadn’t conducted any scans, they didn’t realize that Birch-Morgan had fractured her vertebrae and was therefore almost immobile. To make matters worse, the patient wasn’t administered any painkillers the whole time.
She believed that her poor treatment was due to the hospital’s anti-Western sentiment, claiming: “They weren’t abusive, but they were definitely anti-British — I just felt like an alien.” Not to mention that Montenegro has “the most backward health system in Europe,” according to a 2016 report by the Swedish nongovernmental organization Health Consumer Powerhouse.
Things came to a head when staffers moved the patient to cramped quarters — a move Birch-Morgan believes exacerbated her condition. “At one stage, they decided to pull me out of bed and dumped me onto a chair in a small room and locked the door behind them,” she said. “I had to start making emergency calls to family because I thought my future might be bleak — I was basically a hostage.”
Salvation came after the vacationer’s daughter contacted family back in the UK, who negotiated with their insurance company to get Birch-Morgan home. At long last, the poor soul was airlifted back to the UK, whereupon she finally received proper care at Coventry University Hospital.
“I was still lumped in my own blood when I arrived, and was finally put on morphine,” said the relieved victim, adding that doctors were amazed her injuries weren’t much worse.
“The doctors at Coventry can’t believe I am still here. They said if the fracture in my vertebrae was one inch higher, I would be paralyzed from the head down,” Birch-Morgan added.
Ultimately, she is grateful to her family for rescuing her from the hospital from hell. “If it wasn’t for Omi, and my brother John and his wife Lynne, I don’t know where I would be today . . . it gives me nightmares thinking about it,” the grateful woman said. “My family worked so hard, knocking on all sorts of doors to get me back to the UK. It was a real trial, and I am forever grateful for their efforts.”
This isn’t the first time someone has experience gulag-esque hospital conditions. In another horrific story closer to home, a city-run hospital in Coney Island was accused of negligence after several children were left with severe disabilities due to alleged misdiagnosis.