MP requests 'immediate' help for Thai fall victim

A Birmingham MP has requested a meeting with the Foreign Office after a 20-year-old British man sustained severe brain injuries when he fell from a moving pick-up truck in Thailand.

Ethan Lacey, from Castle Vale, Birmingham, was visiting his cousin in Pattaya when he went missing last month. His family later found him in intensive care.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Erdington's Labour MP Paulette Hamilton said she was requesting an "urgent meeting with the relevant Foreign Office minister to discuss immediate support for Ethan and his family".

The family is raising money and trying to take out personal loans to get Lacey on a specialist flight home and pay for medical bills in Thailand.

Lacey's dad Kevin told the BBC the mention in Parliament was "positive".

"The cost of the hospital each day is taking the money, so it's getting difficult to raise the money to get him home," he said.

His son has been left with three bleeds on the brain, a broken jaw, fractured neck, a broken shoulder, arm and hand after the fall.

Relatives still do not know exactly what happened.

Days before, Lacey had extended his planned four-week trip, but his family said he had forgotten to renew his travel insurance.

His dad said: "He had insurance for four weeks and he was planning to come home, but because the flights were expensive he didn't renew the insurance."

Lacey, who has a three-year-old daughter is slowly showing signs of movement, including moving his hands and fingers.

"We've got a 'fit to fly' certificate but it's on special grounds, he needs a doctors and a nurse and a medic to travel with him," his father said.

"We just want to get him home to his daughter."

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