MOTHER Sian Troupe is keen to warn other families about the lack of support they received from their tour operator after their baby was hospitalised on their ‘holiday from hell’.
A week’s trip to Thomson’s flagship 5*plus Sansatori resort in Tenerife was meant to be a dream escape for Matthew, 39, and Sian Troupe, 37, and their children Oliver, two, and Sophia, five months, from Brinkworth.
However, after just two days of their seven-day holiday things went drastically downhill. Mrs Troupe, who was carrying little Sophia, slipped and fell on raised marble which had become wet from run-off water from a nearby fountain.
As she fell, Mrs Troupe managed to twist and protect her daughter’s head from hitting the floor, but in so doing so she landed on Sophia’s leg leaving the tot with a broken femur and displaced knee.
In a foreign country, with no one seemingly able to communicate with them in English, the couple struggled to cope and were brought to tears at the frustration of trying to get help for Sophia and the rest of the family.
Mrs Troupe, who works for Zurich, Swindon, said: “It was awful; really bad.
“Matt and I are used to dealing with stressful situations at work and we are not easily flustered, but having no support that day really threw us.
“It was all very traumatic.”
The couple have since written a letter to Thomson to complain about the lack of help they felt they received from the tour operator, even having to pay out for their own interpreter at the hospital.
They have also raised concerns about the raised marble floor where mother and daughter fell.
Mrs Troupe spent the day of the incident in hospital with Sophia without food or anyone to speak too.
Sophia, who has been weaned on to three meals a day, had to feed on formula milk as nothing else was available.
Meanwhile Mr Troupe was desperately seeking some kind of creche or nursery service to look after their two-year-old, and when he was finally able to visit his wife and daughter in hospital, he was given details for the wrong hospital.
Mrs Troupe said: “Thomson were really very disappointing consis- tently; it was just unbelievable.
“There was talk about Sophia having to be in traction possibly and having to be out there for four months.
“This was all coming through in muted English. It was a total nightmare from start to finish.
“Thomson didn’t do anything proactively to help.
“I think the problem is that the reps are out there for a holiday, but it is their flagship resort and it’s not what we expected.”
Sophia has been in plaster for four weeks since the couple arrived back from the holiday at the beginning of March.
Thompson said it had received the Troupes’ letter of complaint and its legal team would conduct ‘a full investigation’.
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