A 21-year-old Welsh university student who was on a gap year trip around India has been left fighting for life with serious brain injuries after a scooter crash in Goa — with her family having spent more than £7,000 in three weeks on flights, hotels and private medical care after her travel insurance was invalidated because she was not wearing a helmet.
Olivia North, from Aberystwyth, was travelling alone in northern Goa when she failed to return to her hostel one evening at the beginning of May. Her family raised the alarm after losing contact with her, eventually tracking her down to a hospital in southern Goa after a frantic series of phone calls across the region. She had collided with another scooter at between 30 and 40mph without a helmet, sustaining a subdural haematoma with a 3.6mm bleed on her brain, a significant injury to her left temporal lobe — the part of the brain responsible for storing memories — and damage to her cerebellum, which governs balance and orientation. She also suffered a severe facial cut that nearly cost her the sight in her left eye, and two fractures to her wrist and lower arm that were initially missed by the first hospital she attended.
Her father Nic North flew to Goa with Olivia’s youngest sister within 48 hours of finding out what had happened. What greeted them was devastating. “When we got there on the Saturday, four days after, she didn’t know her own name,” he told the Daily Mail. Olivia recognised her family and the reunion was tearful, but her memory had been catastrophically affected. She believed her older brother Sam was her uncle, had no memory of her beloved dog Raj — who had died just days before Christmas — and could not recall where she had gone to school or activities she had loved, including horse riding and representing Wales at cricket as a teenager. “She was — is — miraculously, alive,” Nic said.
Olivia had decided to take a gap year after becoming disillusioned with university life at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she was studying media and communications. She had worked full-time in hospitality for six months to save for the trip, which she had described as her dream adventure. The accident was not her first in India — in January she had been knocked unconscious when her scooter hit a metal bar protruding from a building. After 20 stitches and treatment for a serious infection, she had made a full recovery. Her father said he could not comprehend why she had not been wearing a helmet on this occasion. “Perhaps she thought lightning couldn’t strike twice after the first accident. More likely she didn’t think at all because, at 21, sometimes you just don’t,” he said. “Who of us can honestly say we’ve never done anything unwise in our younger years?”
Because Olivia was not wearing a helmet at the time of the crash, her travel insurance was rendered invalid, leaving the family bearing all costs themselves. They have spent over £7,000 in three weeks and expect that figure to rise further. Olivia has been sleeping around 20 hours a day, can only walk short distances and has no memory of the crash or the days that preceded it. She has been assessed and scanned regularly at a private hospital close to the hotel where the family established a base after she was discharged from the ICU — Nic said she had been sent home “within minutes” of their arrival due to patient numbers, despite still having a bleed on her brain.
Doctors have now given Olivia the all clear to fly home to Cardiff at the end of the week, where she will continue her recovery. A GoFundMe page set up by her father had raised £12,157 of a £20,000 target at the time of publication.
