A British soldier has been left with a £100,000 hospital bill after shattering his femur and skull from a fall from Na Muang Waterfall 2 in Thailand.
Liam Gibson, 21, who has served for five years after joining the army straight after school, was posing for a photo at the popular tourist destination when he slipped and fell onto a rock ledge metres below.
The soldier, who is a member of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, was "bleeding out" for hours as medics attempted to reach him as he lay inches from a 100m drop.
His 20-year-old girlfriend Lucy Baldwin stayed with him for two hours while he passed in and out of consciousness from the pain in the isolated spot on Koh Samui.
A British soldier has been left with a £100K hospital bill after shattering his femur and skull from a fall from Na Muang Waterfall 2
GoFundMe
Gibson, from Hartlepool, was taken to a local hospital where they rushed him into emergency surgery for three major operations and multiple blood transfusions, five hours after he slipped.
Following the incident, the beautician told the Mail that she experienced "sheer panic" when she saw the "absolutely horrific" state he was in.
She added: "I had to hold him so he wouldn't slip further down the waterfall with my arms and legs wrapped around him, sitting in a pool of his blood. He had bone sticking out of his leg, you could see his skull. It was absolutely horrific.
"The doctors discovered he had completely shattered his femur in three pieces, broken his right arm, shattered his left hand, shattered his eye socket, cheek bone, nose and skull and had multiple open wounds to the bone on his left leg."
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Na Muang Waterfall 2 is a popular tourist destination
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The British soldier, who is now faced with a medical bill of more than £100,000, has continued to gradually recover in hospital over the last three weeks, but can not have the reconstructive surgery on his leg that he needs until he arrives back in the UK.
In an effort to raise the money, the couple have set up a GoFundMe with the aim of bringing him home.
The serviceman and his girlfriend, who remain stranded in Thailand, were only a week into their month-long backpacking trip.
Baldwin, who described the incident as "the worst experience of my life" despite starting off as the "perfect day", said: "The medical bills are just so expensive and obviously the longer he's there, the more they're going up, which is why it's so urgent to bring him home."
Liam Gibson shattered his femur and skull.
GoFundMe
The 20-year-old explained the couple had rented a moped and saw the waterfall on TikTok while exploring the island.
After spotting her boyfriend on the rock ledge unconscious, she attempted to climb down before screaming for help and attracting a local Thai boy to help with the recovery efforts.
She said: "It was absolutely horrific - when you see someone you love in that state, you just go into full survival mode.
"All I could do as we waited for help was to keep talking to him and try to keep him with us. We ended up tying his leg with a T-shirt to stop the bleeding, but Liam kept thinking he was going to die because no one was showing up.
"But obviously it had been so long, even I doubted if someone was coming, if this was it. It was awful - the worst thing I have ever experienced, watching him be in absolute agony, just excruciating pain."
The Foreign Office confirmed they "are aware of a British man who is hospitalised in Thailand and stand ready to provide assistance".
