British fitness instructor Laura Storr, 35, is stranded in a hospital in Saudi Arabia as her family races to raise £108,600 for a medical evacuation.
This case has become a human face of the wider Middle East airspace crisis, as the US-Israel-Iran war makes commercial medical repatriation impossible.
Her family is now in a desperate race against time as her condition rapidly deteriorates.
Laura Storr moved to Saudi Arabia in October 2020 to manage an exercise studio.
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Shortly after her move, she was diagnosed with pulmonary arterial hypertension, a progressive, life-threatening condition that affects the right side of the heart and the arteries in the lungs.
Laura needs a lung transplant urgently, but her condition made commercial flying impossible even before the Iran war broke out.
Revelation
Additionally, her sister Emily Storr spoke to the media.
“She was aiming to come home but she couldn’t fly commercially. She kept waiting until she was stable enough to do it, which never came about.”
The crisis began before the war and the conflict has now made an already impossible situation catastrophic.
Laura’s family has set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise £108,600 for a medical evacuation flight because her insurance will not cover the cost of a medivac. Emily said:
“There’s just so much uncertainty. It’s been an absolute nightmare. Now we’re at this point of needing to make £108,600 just to get them on a medivac and get them out.”
The UK Foreign Office has told Britons in the UAE to immediately shelter in place:
“Remain indoors in a secure location, avoid all travel and follow instructions from the local authorities.”
Also Prime Minister Keir Starmer confirmed more UK charter flights are being arranged for the coming days targeting British nationals stranded in Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The government is asking all Britons in the Middle East to register their presence to help plan evacuation logistics.
The Laura Storr British fitness instructor stranded Saudi Arabia case puts an urgent human face on the bureaucratic complexity of crisis evacuation and highlights the gap between government charter flights and the specialist medivac services critically ill patients desperately need.
