GREENWOOD, Ind. — A teenager paralyzed in a fall while vacationing in France is back in Indiana.
Alex Kalscheur was taking in the Alps from a 30-foot retaining wall in Grenoble, France, when he took a wrong step and fell off the wall. He fractured two of his vertebrae and is partially paralyzed from the waist down. He returned home to Indiana on Wednesday.
Alex’s mother, Amy Kalscheur, talked about the accident with 93 WIBC’s Tony Katz on Thursday.
“We got a phone call at about 6 a.m. from my friend in France, and she says, ‘Amy, there’s been an accident’.”
Amy said Alex was taken to a government-run hospital in Grenoble, where she says her son got a first hand experience in “socialist medicine.”
Amy described what happened when hospital staff had to move Alex from the ICU to another room.
“They had to change beds,” Kalscheur said. “They used a bed sheet and a couple of people. The bed slipped from underneath him and he almost fell. He went into tachycardia and almost went into shock from the pain from it.”
She says when she asked why a backboard or stretcher wasn’t used to move her son, doctors told her it was “a government-run hospital and that they have to do the best they can with what they have available.”
Alex would be stuck at the hospital for 17 days.
Neighbors in his hometown of Greenwood rallied to raise money to get Alex home, since he would need a special means of transport to get back.
“We didn’t ask for a dime,” Kalscheur said. “All I asked for were prayers and that people go to Mass. But then I saw there was a GoFundMe page and all of these events to help Alex.”
Enough money was raised to get Alex back to Greenwood.
Our Lady of the Greenwood church has organized a dance party to help raise money for Alex’s medical expenses. The party is set for July 28th from 6-11 p.m.
(PHOTO: RTV6)
