It was a dream vacation that turned into a nightmare for Katie Malone, who suffered multiple injuries, including a fractured skull, pelvis and ribs.
A woman injured in a horrific parasailing adventure during a Mexican vacation is back home after friends and family raised the money needed for her emergency medical flight.
The wire tethering 29-year-old Katie Malone to the boat snapped while she was vacationing in Puerto Vallarta recently, and she was whipped around at the mercy of high storm winds for 45 minutes.
She finally slammed to the ground and suffered a fractured skull, pelvis and ribs and lacerations to her face. She was taken to a Mexican hospital, where she remained for nearly a month.
Her family organized the effort to get her back to the United States for life-saving surgery they were not able to perform in Mexico.
A GoFundMe account has been established in her name.
With Katie in a Mexican hospital beside him, her brother Brendan pleaded for help to get her home.
“She is always the one to help others," he said in a video posted online. "Now is the time for us to help her."
They raised more than the $20,000 needed to fly her on a private medical flight from Mexico to San Diego, where she arrived Tuesday.
Inside Edition reported on the dangers of parasailing before. In 2012, a 7-year old-boy slammed into a building in the same Mexican town.
He was injured, but survived.
In 2013, two young women were nearly killed in Panama City, Fla., when their line snapped and they ricocheted off buildings. They were left with serious but non-life threatening injuries.
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