An American teenager is stranded in an Italian hospital after falling off a 60-foot cliff and breaking his leg during a school trip to Europe.
Hayden Hill, 18, was walking to a beach outside Rome on Saturday as a senior from New Hope High School in Huntsville, Alabama.
He jumped over a fence to take what he thought was a shortcut to the sand, but realized too late that the fence protected a cliff.
Hayden survived but suffered a dislocated hip, broken ankle and foot and a “small head injury,” said his mother Sharon Hicks.
“The fact that he survived this fall is nothing short of a miracle,” he said.
Hayden Hill, 18 (pictured with his mother Sharon Hicks at his graduation) is stranded in an Italian hospital after falling off a 60-foot cliff and breaking his leg on a school trip to Europe.
He jumped over a fence to take what he thought was a shortcut to the sand, but realized too late that the fence protected this cliff and fell off the edge.
“The community here calls him ‘the miracle child’ and they have gathered around us with a lot of support and kindness.”
However, Hayden is stuck in a small community hospital about a 90-minute drive from Rome, where “the language barrier is almost unbearable.”
“We ended up in a very low quality hospital (even the Italians say so),” Sharon explained in a Facebook post.
And here we are stuck with the only doctor who hates Americans. I’ll probably hear this man’s screams in my nightmares for the rest of my life!’
Hayden’s family wants to get him home to the US as soon as possible so he can receive treatment there, and he may need more surgeries.
Sharon, in a series of updates, told how Hayden was cleared by a neurologist on Tuesday, but the orthopedic doctor was making it difficult for him to get out.
“The orthopedic doctor came in screaming and yelling at everyone and he won’t release Hayden until an American doctor walks in here shakes his head and says, ‘I’m going to take this kid off your hands and be responsible for him now,'” he wrote Wednesday.
‘That’s not going to happen.’
Hayden survived but suffered a dislocated hip, broken ankle and foot, and a “small head injury.”
Hayden during the trip to Europe in a photo posted by his mother a few days before his fall. ‘I think she is having the time of her life in Italy! And I think that Italian leather jacket might look good on mom too,” she wrote.
Sharon said the Italian doctor wanted an American doctor and nurse to come to Italy and accompany Hayden, on a stretcher, to his home in Alabama.
The longer Hayden remains immobilized in the hospital, the more his condition worsens and he develops sores and is at risk of contracting pneumonia.
“Hayden needs to be in physical therapy out of this bed, out of a diaper and sitting up so he doesn’t get pneumonia,” Sharon said.
‘He has started coughing up dark brown mucus and sores are developing on his lower back.
“Hayden is not hooked up to any monitors, all his vitals are clear, we honestly can’t get the doctors to contact us in any way to help us get out of here so we can go home for treatment.”
Sharon said the hospital staff didn’t even give her son a potty and he was stuck in adult diapers on his back all day.
The U.S. Embassy would provide a wheelchair and a van to take Hayden to the airport and put him on a plane, but only if they could find a flight and be allowed to discharge him from the hospital.
“If we can’t find a way to get out of here and get home on Saturday, we will at least transfer him to a better hospital in Rome, where more people speak English and he could receive better care,” Sharon wrote.
Hayden’s family (pictured with parents Chris and Sharon Hicks) want to get him home to the US as soon as possible so he can receive treatment there, and he may need further surgeries.
The longer Hayden remains immobilized in the hospital, the more his condition worsens and he develops sores and is at risk of contracting pneumonia.
Hayden at least had one good moment at the hospital when he met the lifeguards who rescued him from the cliff after he lay there in agony for an hour.
“This made Hayden’s day… they even did a zoom call with all the other rescuers so they could see him too,” his mother said.
Hayden had travel insurance, but his family had difficulty connecting him to the Italian health system, and initial repatriation costs before reimbursement could run into tens of thousands of dollars.
Friends of the family are raising money in the United States to pay for the specialized medical flight across the Atlantic and back home via Atlanta.
‘The cost for Sharon to fly to Italy to be with her son was not cheap!’ they wrote in the fundraiser.
‘At this time, it is very likely that Hayden will need to be transported back to the United States on a medical plane which will cost more than we could imagine.
“The goal is for Hayden to return to the United States no matter the means or cost.”