Scary drama...

One of my cousins is in his late mid 30s. He went down to Costa Rica with some friends and was severely injured in a freak accident. We don't know all of the details yet, but apparently he was tubing in some shallow water, fell, and something happened and he ended up unconscious. Some of the sketchy details we have received are that he ended up in local village clinic, and he was paralyzed. Then the American consulate got involved, and he ended up in a hospital in San Jose (the capital). He had neck surgery yesterday, and they had to implant two plastic disks into his cervical neck as well as a titanium rod. My brother (who is very close with him) talked to him, and I guess he still has some paralysis in his hands and fingers. He was also very drugged up on pain medications obviously.

My aunt and uncle flew out last night. My aunt's passport had expired, so my uncle had called a local government official who met my aunt and uncle at the passport office at 7:30 PM last night and offered her a temporary passport. Nice to see our government work positively and quickly! I guess they do offer this only for medical emergencies.

I'm really worried about my cousin, and I can't believe this happened. It is hard getting firm details out of everyone out there, but hopefully things will become more clear soon. Also, I keep wondering how long it will be for him to get stable so they can send him back to the US, and how exactly does this all work?

Very, very scary...