Overview
- Scott Winslow is critically ill in a Fiji intensive care unit on a ventilator with septic shock and multi-organ complications after a severe infection that began during a South Pacific sailing trip.
- His family says the illness may have started from what looked like a bug bite and that the infection has spread to his lungs and other organs, leaving kidney function severely reduced.
- The family has secured a transfer bed at Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Massachusetts but cannot move him until an air ambulance is arranged and paid for.
- They have raised several thousand dollars through an online fundraiser, have applied for an emergency U.S. government loan, and estimate the medflight could cost as much as $250,000.
- Local hospitals in Fiji are providing critical care but the family and reporting say Winslow needs higher-level treatment available in the U.S., putting urgent pressure on officials, lenders, and donors to act quickly.