Dear Paragliding friends and family,

A couple of weeks ago, our dear Mexican friend Ricardo Peña had an accident in Colombia and hurt his ego. Ah, and his foot also quite badly. He suffered from an open fracture on his right ankle, disrupting the ankle mortise and tenon joint, and honestly, its not looking pretty.

Having an accident in Colombia is not recommended. After the injury (which happened around 1pm) it took hours for him to be uncomfortably transported to a nearby doctors post where there was nobody to actually help him. After a visit to another butchershop hospital in el Cerrito, lots of paperwork, and incredibly painful cleanings, he was finally transported to a specialised center for complex injuries in Cali (at midnight!!).

There were no nurses with us in the ambulance, his foot was barely stabilised (in a hand made carton creation) and he was not at all strapped on to the bed so we were literally rolling around in the back of the ambulance. Surely this must have been the most uncomfortable trip he has ever done.

The new hospital in Cali looked a lot better, cleaner, and our hopes were high. New scans were made and even though he had an open fracture with little ligaments left, they tried to do a closed reduction (trying to set the foot back in its place), which was unsuccessful. They eventually had to seduce Rico at some point because this was incredibly unpleasant. The pain remained. And after a few hours of now knowing what to do with himself we finally got the doctors to give him morphine, at 4am in the morning, about 15 hours after the accident had happened. Then being extremely exhausted, he finally slept for a couple of hours. In the morning the surgeon came and he soon had his first surgery.

This was only the first of a bunch of operations. Despite being on antibiotics the foot managed to get infected and as little was done about it, his brothers flew to Colombia to come pick him up. He is currently in good hands at the hospital in Toluca - Mexico.

We all know Rico, he has been a good friend to all of us, to all of the paragliding community, especially in Mexico, and Im sure he would really appreciate it if we could help him out covering some of the costs that are being made along the way of a long recovery. Funds will be used to cover:

Please share this fundraiser among the paragliding community so we have more chance to reach our target.

Thanks a million guys!

The Fundraising team

Tuli, and Chaeden (who will be receiving the funds in USD for Ricardo)