Paralyzed Idaho Falls man stranded in Switzerland speaks out after flight home is canceled

IDAHO FALLS — An Idaho Falls native paralyzed in a Swiss skiing accident remains stranded in a Bern, Switzerland, hospital after his original flight back home was canceled.

“(I) just flew a little too close to the sun, tried to do a trick and landed, you know, not quite so smoothly,” Justin Holman told EastIdahoNews.com in an interview from Switzerland on Thursday.

Holman and his wife Jaquoy are speaking out in an urgent attempt to bring Justin back to the United States after 17 days of waiting in the hospital with no way yet to return to America.

RELATED | An Idaho Falls man paralyzed in Swiss skiing crash hopes to return home

Justin broke his back on Feb. 3 “in a catastrophic spinal cord injury … shattering his C6 vertebrae,” his family said in a news release, “paralyzing him from the waist down and leaving him unable to move or control his hands or fingers.”

Plans to have Justin return home on a medical flight on Sunday were not approved by a medical board.

“Justin’s medical team determined that turbulence or in-flight risks could jeopardize his chances of regaining use of his hands, so they would not clear him for that mode of transport,” his brother Stetson Holman wrote Tuesday on GoFundMe. “… The original medical flight company we had put a $15,000 deposit on is no longer an option.”

A dream vacation crashes down

Justin and Jaquoy are high school sweethearts who have been married since 2019.

As a boy, Justin grew up skiing and snowboarding at Kelly Canyon, where his dad was an instructor.

“All my brothers have been on skis and snowboards since we could walk,” said Stetson.

The couple had embarked on a dream vacation to ski in the Alps. It was their first-ever skiing adventure in Europe.

“We were skiing at a ski resort called Zermatt. It is at the base of the Matterhorn,” Justin said.

On Feb. 3, they skied across the Swiss border into Italy and enjoyed lunch together on Italian soil, Jaquoy said.

“It was the coolest thing we’ve ever done,” Justin said. “We’ll still look back on it with very fond memories. It was amazing!”

But as they continued skiing, one eventful jump took a turn for the worse. He blacked out and does not remember what happened next or how he landed.

After breaking his back, Justin was airlifted to Inselspital, the University Hospital of Bern, about 72 miles away from Zermatt.

Doctors fused his neck in an emergency operation, but Justin did not receive authorization from his insurer, UnitedHealthcare, for any physical therapy rehabilitation in Europe or for medical transport back to the United States, the family said in the release.

A race against time

Justin’s family worry that the longer he goes without rehabilitation, it may hurt his chances to regain movement.

“The biggest issue from my viewpoint, as a nurse, is since the insurance won’t pay for physical therapy and occupational therapy, he hasn’t and isn’t benefiting from that,” his step-mother Karin Holman wrote to EastIdahoNews.com. “The best chance for recovery is initiating therapy ASAP, and he’s already had two weeks without it. It terrifies me for his chances.”

The shattered vertebrae is just above his shoulders, the Holmans said.

“Pretty much anything below that, there’s a chance it (movement) won’t come back,” Justin said. “You never know until you get into rehab. So we’re anxiously awaiting that to kind of see what’s going to come back (and) what’s not, but we just won’t know until we get to Colorado.”

Stuck in Switzerland

Once a flight can be secured to Denver, Justin will receive physical therapy and occupational therapy at Craig Hospital, one of the nation’s leading neurorehabilitation clinics for spinal injuries. He will be cared for by in-network specialists.

However, the cost for the current air ambulance proposal to return to America “comes at a massive cost — between $135,000 and $195,000,” Stetson wrote on GoFundMe. “We are doing everything we can to make it happen, even putting it on credit cards if needed.”

“It’s very stressful, and our insurance has put us in an extremely stressful situation, but people’s generosity has made it feel that much less stressful,” Jaquoy said.

As of Thursday evening, 1,200 individuals have given a total of $87,910 to help with the trip home and Justin’s other medical costs from the helicopter flight and hospital in Bern.

If you would like to support Justin in his journey home, you can donate here.

The Holmans appreciate everyone who has helped out in any way — the doctors and nurses, family members coordinating care, Jaquoy’s aunt who flew out to help, a local Swiss bishop who visits and the friends and donors back home.

“Thank you to everyone for all their support and love. We can feel it, and we’re very grateful,” Jaquoy said.

As for future plans, the couple is taking it one day at a time and hoping they’ll be able to return to the United States soon.

“My brother keeps telling me we need to buy a monoski with the chair on it, and I’m like, ‘Yeah, let’s wait,'” Justin said. “I think we’ll try to make sure my arms work a little better than they do now before we start thinking anything crazy.”

Watch our video with Justin Holman in the video player above.

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