British backpacker, 22, ‘was afraid of dying alone’ after falling 4 metres in quad bike accident in Greece

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A British backpacker told her mother she was afraid of dying alone in Greece after a quad bike accident caused her to fall four metres into a ravine.

Courtney Leanne Boylan, from north-east Manchester, is currently in intensive care at an Athens hospital after the vehicle she was travelling in with a friend crashed into a fence on the island of Naxos last Friday.

The 22-year-old suffered fluid in her lungs, a split liver, a ruptured spleen and internal bleeding after the quad bike threw her into the ravine at the side of the road and landed on top of her, her family said.

A resident of Naxos is said to have climbed down to reach her before rescue workers took her to a local hospital, where she was drained of her breast before being taken to Athens General Hospital, which Manchester Evening News reported.

Her mother Debbie – who told the outlet she booked “the first flight” to Athens after calling the hospital and the British embassy in her fear – said Ms Boylan’s “heartbreaking” first words to her when she arrived were: “I thought I was going to die alone.”

“We are now on day six and Courtney is getting stronger,” her mother added. “She has two chest tubes for pleural effusions, she has fluid on her abdomen due to the damage to her liver and spleen, and x-rays just showed she has a lung opacification.”

“We are all desperate. I have panic attacks when I have to leave and I have to pull myself together to be strong. The doctors and the locals have all been great.”

The family have launched a crowdfunding campaign to fly Ms Boylan back to the UK for treatment. She has been told that a flight, where she will be alone in hospital and cared for by medical teams, would cost either £5,000, or more than £36,000 for a private air ambulance.

Her sister, who set up the GoFundMe page – which has so far raised more than £5,500 – said that although Ms Boylan has health insurance, it is “refusing to pay out due to unforeseen circumstances”.

Her mother said Ms Boylan had planned to study and then travel. She said: “After university she took a job, saved hard and booked her backpacking trip to Greece. Her plan was to continue her education or work in the field she had studied when she returned.”

“She loves history and wanted to see it on her own because she can make friends in an empty room. I dropped her off at Manchester Airport on June 6th with a one-way ticket and she went to Rhodes and met lots of lovely people and friends there.”

Ms Boylan then travelled to Kos and Mykonos before heading to Naxos, where she “met some lovely friends… and they had a blast,” her mother said.

“One morning, two girls wanted to go hiking, but Courtney and her friend didn’t feel like it, so they decided to go sightseeing on a quad bike. Her friend had a driver’s license and booked a quad bike with Courtney riding in the back.”

Her mother explained that whenever the Greek streets became narrow, the friends would stop to let a car pass.

She added: “After the car had left, her friend tried to turn the handlebars to drive off slowly and I can only assume she pulled too hard on the throttle, causing them to crash into a fence. They crashed into the gate and then over the embankment.

“Courtney fell from behind and rolled down the ravine where the quad landed on top of her. She got up and fell back again because she couldn’t breathe. They were both wearing helmets or they would have been dead.”