Sheffield mum's plea to get her husband, 48, home from Cyprus after shock double stroke

Darren Fantom, who “two weeks ago was a healthy 48-year-old man, always smiling, always happy and loved by so many people”, suffered ‘two massive strokes’ while working in Cyprus with his wife Andrea.

The father-of-three is non-responsive and in an intensive care unit in capital Nicosia, where he is awaiting surgery.

Doctors have told Andrea that Darren’s best chance is if he can be taken to the UK, where he can receive rehabilitation and stay with his family who can care for him.

However the cost of getting him back via air ambulance is more than £30,000. As Darren cannot work, and Andrea needs to be his full-time carer, their savings will not cover costs.

“I am desperate for help to get him flown back to the UK by air ambulance for ongoing treatment,” Andrea said.

“I have been told he will need full time care as the damage to his brain is extensive and will be totally life changing. I alone can’t provide the care he will need but we have family in the UK who are ready to help me when I can get him home.”

Andrea and Darren moved to Cyprus four years ago, having previously lived in Parsons Cross in Sheffield. Andrea is from Sheffield and Darren moved there from Chesterfield, where he grew up.

They both worked for an electrical company, and Darren recently took up long-distance running and weights training in order to keep fit.

They had been back to England to visit family for Christmas, where Andrea says “everybody was so pleased with how fit and well Darren looked after all his exercise”, and had decided to move back to the UK.

Darren’s strokes, on January 16, changed everything.

“It’s horrific,” Andrea said. “We were at work and Darren started to feel sick, and then his legs started to go.

“We were in A and E and he started to get worse. His speech was going and he was trying to tell me he was having a stroke.”

Darren’s first scans did not find anything wrong and he went back to wait in A and E. He then had another stroke and later scans found that he had a massive bleed on the brain.

He has since been sent to three different hospitals to see different specialists. However a punctured lung caused by a tracheotomy and a broken brain scanning machine in the current hospital means the family must wait until he is able to have any more surgery.

In spite of these setbacks there is hope for Darren.

“The doctors said to me that they can see light at the end of the tunnel,” Andrea said. “They have told me that he may be able to make some recovery if he can be properly cared for. His best chance is in Sheffield with our families where we can look after him.”

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