Intensive care IC for our PAPA, severe head and brain injury

Hello everyone, our names are Laura and Mark Pals, also on behalf of our grandparents, the parents of our dad, we write you this story with our wishes for you to donate money required for the acute medical and intensive care of our beloved father Douwe Pals.

What Happened

Papa, Douwe, was hit by a 24 years old Paraguayan male driver on Sunday afternoon around 15.30 local time in Paraguay. The driver of the car, the 24 year old man made a dangerous U-turn on a 60 km/h road and hit my dad who was on the motorcycle in the process. Unfortunately, due to the normally safe location of this road, my dad wasn't wearing a helmet on his way back home from eating an ice cream.. Douwe got catapulted and hit his head very, very poorly in which his skull broke into several cracks, basically like an eggshell. Everything after that is only more unfortunate.

He got brought to the local hospital in Caacupe, in which they wanted to give up on him, fortunately, my brothers friend Mexi was around and received the message via emergency messages in several chat groups and went over to help him, thanks to her actions and another friend Bob, our father got transported to a specialised private clinic in Asuncion, this whole process between the accident and getting the right care for him took 5 hours.. He got immediately into a 3 hours brain surgery and has next to his brain injury a broken clavicle, punctured long and a big trauma around his hip. They're keeping him in an artificial coma to reduce long side effects from all the swelling of his head and brain.

Money Issues no Insurance

On the day after the accident my brother and I discovered that our dad did not had any insurance for himself or his motorcycle, so we can't get any support from here. Also we had a discovery that his bank accounts were running low. During the first five days in the public hospital we spent €20.000 on the intensive care and surgeries. We were only able to pay this with all of your help! On day five luckily a ICU spot at a much more affordable public hospital opened up to which Papa was transferred now. He is expected to be in the ICU of the public hospital for 45 days now. The costs for these 45 days will amount to about €12.250. Which is where we need your help!

Perpetrator tries to get away

Two days after the accident, we had a terrible experience. When intended to visit and see our dad during visiting hours, the father of the 24 year old perpetrator was waiting for us in the waiting room! He tried to convince us that there's no money on their end and that he feels very sorry but cannot help us in anyway possible. Meanwhile we know from the police report in Altos, that the guy came from one of the wealthy families who lives in an expensive gated community between San Bernardino and Altos and was driving a big and expensive car. When we asked the father of the perpetrator for his ID and contact details, he refused and from there on it became ugly, his energy turned around and I tried to let the hospital send security he wanted to leave the building. I forced him to stay inside and meanwhile the police got called. Unfortunately they could not make him to give us his contactdetails, he only shared details of his lawyer, which is kinda weird for someone who claims to have no money right? He also tried to convince the police that his son didn't do anything bad, meanwhile earlier upstairs in the waiting room he confessed he was sorry for the accident his son caused.

We have a strong feeling we're dealing with influential people that are trying to prevent themselves from admitting they did something wrong, Paraguay is a strange country in which blackmail happens all the time and commoners are afraid of people with influence and money, meanwhile the ones with so much power and money are very proud and will see paying for my dads medical care as admitting they were responsible, and meanwhile they are ofcourse! But this family does not seem to want to cooperate whatsoever and this makes our pain only bigger and bigger.

Following Medical Care and Expectations

After day 7 in the IC the doctors are trying to help my dad get out of his artificially induced coma. As soon as he is out of that they can start testing the potentially long term damage to his brain. At the moment his primary brain functions are normal and he's responding well to the treatment and the doctors confirmed Douwe is a tremendously strong man and that his healthy lifestyle seems to be part of his staying alive so far. Still he's fighting for his life and we're with him on giving him the time he needs by keeping the bills for his care paid and finding ways to get to the perpetrator.

Meanwhile all of this costs so much money, that we need your help, we're already translating his testament to get the proof of right to act on his behalf so we can go to the banks here to see if we can get a loan on his Paraguayan house, we have no idea if this is going to work out, but we try everything. Otherwise his house needs to be sold, even though this also does not give us the money we need now since the housing market in Paraguay is slow and not easy. We expect the house not to be worth more than tops 150.000 if we would find the right real estate manager and buyer.

Who is our Papa? Who is the man Douwe Pals?

Our Papa, Douwe, born January 1971, is somebody who I cannot spend enough words describing his many talents and strong personality. He is loving, funny, hardworking and a real lover of our beautiful universe! He had been a successful manager at KPN Mobiel for many years and followed the high potential programs, he was beyond good at being a manager, meanwhile he was the young and fit dad for us with whom we had fun and active activities with all the time. He really was the provider on many ends, since our mom wasn't up for that job since she had severe borderline personality disorder. After the divorce at one point, we could see Douwe was finally starting to live the life HE deserved, he found an amazing girlfriend and he started to do things he liked, in particular being a soccer referee. He became sooo good at it, that if he would've started this when he was younger, he could've become a professional referee. So he ended up being at the highest level possible in being a referee within his age and he got a beautiful community with that, people really loved is personality and way of doing, they appreciated his firm honesty and sense of righteousness, soccer teams during competitions always cheered when they saw him showing up as a referee. Unfortunately during covid my dad could not see a future for himself in the Netherlands anymore and started exploring where to live the second half of his life, he always wished to be able to travel the world, and since becoming more and more into spirituality and understanding his true nature, he decided he wanted to leave the country. In 2022 he moved to Paraguay and it was beautiful to see him making these choices for himself and building his most beautiful live on his terms. Also here in Paraguay he made had within a short time some nice contacts with people from a German community and he seemed to have also impressed them with his beautiful soul and loving and helping nature.

MILESTONES

1st - Saving His Life in Private ICU - €20.000 ✅✅✅

We did it — together. Thanks to your incredible generosity, we were able to reach our first crucial milestone. This allowed us to admit him to the only hospital with the specialized neurosurgical team capable of giving him a real chance at survival. The cost was overwhelming — around €4.000 for the surgery and €3.200 per day — but it was our only option to save his life.

Without you, he wouldn’t have made it this far. Thank you for helping us keep him alive!

2nd - Chance for Recovery in Public ICU - €11.250

Now that the emergency surgery is done, he has been transferred to the public ICU, where daily costs are lower — but the road ahead is still uncertain and long. He is still in a coma. Still fighting. Still fragile. This is the phase where time equals life. Every day he stays in proper care, every day he receives the medications he needs, is a day closer to a possible recovery.

We now face around €250 of daily expenses, covering essential medications and hospital equipment (€125), food and accommodation for family staying close (€75), and other urgent needs like transport, and legal or medical logistics (€50). In total that is €11.250 for 45 days in the ICU of the public hospital.

We need your help to support him through this critical phase — to give his body and brain the time they need to prove he can heal.

3rd - Full Recovery & Rehabilitation

This is where hope begins to take root — but also where the unknown starts. We don’t yet know how much this final phase will cost, because we don’t yet know how long it will take. For now we estimate what it will cost an additional €30.000. What we do know: He’s still fighting for his life. He’s not out of the coma yet. But there are many signs that healing is possible.

UPDATES

The situation is unfolding and changing day by day. These are the updates of the first few days:

Update 9-7-2025 About the Perpetrator

My brother, Mark, went back to the relevant police station to submit documents for the complaint against this 24-year-old and made the inhumane discovery that, after hitting our father, the young man drove to the police station and filed a report against our father, accusing him of being at fault due to intoxication of alcohol. It is truly sickening. Our father doesn’t even drink and according to the doctors, was immediately unconscious from the accident.

The terrible thing about this is that we are dealing with a Paraguayan family with influence and money. In this country, with a poor police and judicial system, this means manipulation is used to help the 24-year-old son, who hit our father, escape accountability. Technically, this young man should be in jail because a legal case could be made for possible manslaughter, but he is walking free, and his father/family has hired the best and most expensive lawyer.

Update 10-07 Medical Situation

Beginning afternoon we had another doctor's update and got the unfortunate news that he's still not improving, the inflammation of his brain persists and therefore also the amount of fluid and pressure. Their estimation on how long he will need intensive care was said to be 45 days.. You can imagine that this was a major setback to receive. We asked if there would be any chance of transferring him to a suitable public hospital and after 4 hours a spot at the Hospital del Trauma had opened up!

At 22.00 he was brought in and now one of us always needs to stay at the hospital 24/7, since supplies from the pharmacy need to be picked up by us when doctors ask for it. This the reality of public hospitals. Also we can just visit our dad only for 30 minutes each day, which feels harsh considering the circumstances.

Update 10-07 Legal Steps

Meanwhile this transfer will give our dad more time to proof he's capable of healing if we just give him enough time. Also we can now continue with the legal case, since money for this is also required. Unfortunately also on that end, luck does not seem to be on our side..

Today we discovered via our lawyer that we need to pay for the legal investigation ourselves, which is normally covered by the state. This strange situation is created due to the fact that when the perpetrator drove off and went to the police to file the false report, he said it wasn't a major accident. This caused the police not to document it as a case that falls in the category of justice and therefore investigation by the state wasn't put into immediate action.

So please, understand that this fundraiser isn't only about the medical support anymore, it's also very much needed to continue to bring this to justice.

Loving and warm regards from us as a family, Laura, Mark, Elsje and Johannes, but also from Douwe, he's listening to everyone who thinks of him and wishes him to fully recover! He's not ready to go, please help him!

If you're too sensitive to see hospital photo's, than don't scroll further down, but I do want to include this photo to show how severe it is and how much he needs the care he's getting right now!

(Please keep in mind that the situation is changing by the hour so this text and all the numbers change according to the current state of things (12-07-2025))