Girl ‘wiped clean out’ by paraglider in Turkey needs surgery costing £45,000

A schoolgirl who was struck by a paraglider while enjoying a meal with family in Turkey is set to undergo back and jaw surgery costing tens of thousands of pounds.
Lily Nichol, of Chester-le-Street, was with her mum and sister eating a pizza in a restaurant near the beach on the last day of their holiday in Oludeniz when she was “wiped clean out” and left severely injured.
Mum Lyndsey Logan said her daughter’s spine was broken in four places and requires surgery which, along with other medical bills, could cost the family up to £45,000.
Recalling the incident on Friday (8 November), Lyndsey told ITV Tyne Tees she was living “every mam’s worst nightmare”.
“The way he came, his feet have hit the back of my daughter and the table’s gone over and she just face-planted the whole thing so his feet – she took the most of his pressure from his feet,” she explained.
“They come down really fast. When I picked her up and put her on the floor we had to resuscitate her, she had a stroke and she was unconscious until she got to the hospital and she woke up and thought she was having a dream.”
Lyndsey said she initially thought her daughter was dead. When they arrived at the hospital themselves, Lily was taken into intensive care where they could not contact her.
Now the focus has moved to getting Lily better – which means multiple operations including on her back and jaw.
“If we move her she could be paralysed,” Lyndsey continued. “She’s got four breaks in her spine and she’s broken the strongest bone in her jaw so it’s going to be a lot of box.
“She’s going to have that treatment back in the UK. She’s got a fractured collar bone and broken ribs but they’ll just heal themselves.
“Her tongue’s been all bitten off and she’s got stitches in there and stitches around her eye, but she could lose her eyesight too. She’s lost all of her teeth.”
With no insurance, the family is facing spiralling and unaffordable medical bills after forking out thousands already.
The family set up a fundraising page in the wake of the incident which has now reached more than £35,000. Meanwhile, a fundraising event is being held in the North East this week.
Lyndsey said: “I can’t thank anyone enough for the support. It means a lot. We couldn’t have done without you. But now I’m just concentrating on getting her better and getting her home.”
She added that the family were now facing a bigger bill to bring her daughter home with medical care.
Lyndsey believes the paraglider who hit Lily was a Russian national and told ITV Tyne Tees she had been in contact with local police.
Marc Asquith, one of the founding members of the The British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association (BHPA) said the area the family were staying is a hotspot for paragliders, though incidents of this kind were uncommon.
He told ITV Tyne Tees: “The family were at the tourist resort of Oludeniz which is adjacent to a large mountain, making it a very popular spot for paragliding.
He added : “It’s very rare that a member of the public is hurt by a paraglider pilot.”
Mr Asquith said Turkish paragliding regulations are loose with no requirement for a paragliding licence and no legal requirement for the pilot to get insurance.
Speaking on the differences of paragliding regulations compared to the UK, he said: “If the pilot had been British he would have been insured and we would have made sure that the insurance leapt into action as soon as we heard about it.
“But the community know that this pilot is not British, know that insurance is unlikely and so a lot of members, I know, are donating to the go fund me page that the family has set up.”
Those at the paragliding association say that as the resort is an extremely busy area, they would welcome the idea to separate the landing paragliders use from those on the beach or at the restaurants.
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