Dante Goodwin and his girlfriend Shay Williams were vacationing this past week in Cancún when Goodwin suffered an accident that left him with neck and vertebrae injuries causing paralysis in the lower half of his body.
Williams says she didn’t see him go into the pool at their Cancún resort but saw him a few seconds later, floating face down in the water unable to move. A family member pulled him out of the water, his mouth full of blood, and Goodwin told Williams he couldn’t feel his feet and legs.
Goodwin was rushed to a private hospital and then two days later taken to the Jesús Kumate Rodríguez General hospital in Cancún. Family members immediately flew in from the United States fearing the worst, but over the subsequent days in the hospital Goodwin’s condition stabilized enough that they arranged to have him transported back to the United States.
The Goodwin family set up an online GoFund account － which has now raised over US $28,000 － which they hoped would raise enough money to pay for the cost of the hospital care and the medical transport from one country to the other which was expected to have a price tag of anywhere from $27,000 to $60,000.
Goodwin safely traveled to the Miami Memorial Hospital on Wednesday night, a facility known for its spinal treatment center, and is now recovering.
In a social media post, a family member was highly critical of medical care in Cancún comparing the hospital to being in a horror movie. It is still unknown if Goodwin had any kind of health insurance or whether the hotel will be determined to be financially responsible for what happened.
With reports from Por Esto
