(STORY IMAGE:KHQ.COM)
A Coeur d’Alene family is desperately trying to get their mother home.
Vikki Moormann went on a trip with her sister-in-law to Nuevo Vallarta in Mexico on April 30. She fell ill, went to a doctor’s office, and then was sent to the hospital. Then, her son, Ryan, got a phone call from the hospital, saying that they had to pay her bill or she wouldn’t be able to leave. Ryan says it’s like his mom is being held hostage.
“I’m so frustrated,” Vikki said over the phone Wednesday. “I’ve been spending my morning crying.”
Ryan just got the itemized bill Wednesday and it says they have to pay nearly $35,000 USD.
Ryan suggested his mom originally go on the trip so she could relax.
“It is the one-year anniversary of my dad’s passing. Coming up on that time, she was starting to get depressed,” he says.
But now, she’s in a hospital. She says even though she’s well enough to leave, the hospital won’t let her because they need to pay the bill in full first.
“We don’t have that type of money,” Ryan says.
Vikki is a retired Coeur d’Alene High School teacher. She already gave the hospital everything she had on her.
“I'm caught between a rock and a hard place because if I give them every single penny we have it's not going to cover the full bill,” Ryan says.
He says and if he does give them every cent he has, and they somehow let her leave, he won’t have enough money to fly her back home. Ryan’s been on the phone constantly, reaching out to the State Department, the Consulate, anyone he can think of. But so far, there hasn’t been a resolution.
“I’m hoping I can get her out of there and back in America,” he says. “I just want her back, safe and sound.”
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