NZ accident victim desperate to get home from Greece

Olympia Geary

Olympia Geary just wants to come home.

The 23-year-old Oamaru beauty queen has been laid up in a Greek hospital bed for a months, and says she is bored, worried, and a bit depressed.

She has been worrying not only about her severely damaged leg, but also about how she will pay a huge hospital bill.

Her care is costing about €3000 ($6150) a day.

Miss Geary's three year "OE" came to an abrupt end last month when her left kneecap was destroyed in a road accident.

She is recovering in St Andrew's Hospital in Patras, in southern Greece, after four sessions of surgery, including an eight-hour operation, during which muscle was removed from her back and put into her leg.

This week, she said the impact of the collision in which she was involved "sliced off" half her leg and she was lucky to still have it.

Her travel insurance had expired and she did not renew it, which was "my own silly fault".

The enormous hospital bill was likely to be "hanging over my head for the rest of my life", she said.

In 2001, Miss Geary, then 18, was crowned Miss North Otago and attended the Miss World New Zealand contest in Auckland.

At that time, she was employed as a dental assistant; she later worked as a pharmacy assistant.

She also worked nights at a nightclub and a tavern to pay for her overseas trip.

She went overseas alone, basing herself in London.

She went to Greece six weeks before the accident, working for the promoters of a three-month-long beach party.

She had been intending to return home to Oamaru, but on July 3, the moped on which she was a pillion passenger was hit by a car.

Ms Geary said the Australian friend driving the moped, Kenny Lewis, did not see the car when he did a u-turn.

Mr Lewis, who had been on the island only three days, broke his arm and leg and had returned to Sydney.

"He's pretty gutted," Ms Geary said.

She was taken to a local hospital, then transferred to a Patras hospital, where there was a plastic surgeon.

The first operation she had was to save her leg, the second to clean the wound, the third to transfer muscle and the fourth to graft skin.

She was hoping to be able to fly home within the next couple of weeks, accompanied by her mother, Cindi, who travelled to Greece after the crash to be with her only child.

Ms Geary said she was heartened by her mother's arrival and also visits from friends.

She spent her days reading magazines and "watching crap Greek television".

She could walk in a walking frame "only a little bit" and a brace was holding her leg straight. Eight pins, "more like knitting needles", were inserted in the leg.

News of Ms Geary's plight had spread quickly in Oamaru and people wanted to know what they could do to help, her aunt Wendy Geary said this week.

Feeling helpless at being so far away, the only thing she could think of was donations to assist with the hospital bill and flights home.

The Oamaru branch of Westpac bank had agreed to set up an account and was receiving donations.

"A lot of people want to help. I didn't know any other way of doing it," she said.

This week, Oamaru restaurant proprietor Trish Woods-Whiting said Ms Geary was "such a lovely girl".

She planned to run a raffle and have a donation box at the restaurant.

"This is a young girl that's given something back to Oamaru," she said. "I think Oamaru should get behind her and try and bring her home and help pay her medical fees.

"I just feel this is one of our own. We need to do something."

- OTAGO DAILY TIMES