Boyfriend offers free holiday to anyone who helps his girlfriend

Passionate kitesurfer Zoe Schaffer-Jennett was badly injured when she tripped while walking home at night. Photo / Instagram, Jeremie Tronet

A desperate boyfriend is offering a five-month free holiday in the Caribbean in exchange for free physiotherapy for his badly injured kitesurfer girlfriend who broke her hip falling into a concrete ditch.

Zoe Schaffer-Jennett, 27, suffered a complicated femoral neck fracture in her hip that will leave her bedbound for months.

Her boyfriend Jeremie Tronet, who runs a kitesurfing centre on Union Island in the heart of the Grenadines, has made a Facebook appeal for a willing physiotherapist to help her reduce the costs of mounting medical bills.

Ms Schaffer-Jennett, a kitesurfing instructor who grew up between the Caribbean and boarding schools in England and Scotland, was flown to Martinique Island for emergency surgery after she "tripped in a very dark corner at night alongside the road and fell into a concrete ditch", her 29-year-old boyfriend explained.

After the accident, Ms Schaffer-Jennett had to sleep at home for a night on basic painkillers before she could be flown to a hospital in Martinique in a tiny airplane.

She is currently recovering from a four-hour long surgery during which three screws had to be placed in her leg to reattach her femoral head to the bone.

Now she is facing a five-month recovery period that will require daily assistance from a physiotherapist, as she will have to learn how to walk again.

Ms Schaffer-Jennett, an Austrian national with an English dad who was born on the French Caribbean island of Martinique and lives on Union Island, is not covered by appropriate health insurance due to her complicated status.

"For the surgery and stay at the hospital it wasn't a big issue, the main problem we encountered was when our surgeon told us that Zoe had to be in a rehabilitation center for 5 months," Mr Tronet said.

"Such rehab centers cost between $1200 to 2000 a day which would have come up to over $300.000 in medical bills.

"This was the most stressful situation for us as we wanted the best treatment for her even if we had to put ourselves in debt. I will do everything necessary to make sure she can walk properly again," Mr Tronet added.

But instead of asking other people for money to help with the medical bills, the couple decided to make an unconventional call on social media.

"We knew that crowdfunding would have been a viable solution to pay for the rehab center, but we didn't want to get to this unless we would have used all of the other possible options we could think off," Mr Tronet said.

Since the job offer and details of Ms Schaffer-Jennett's accident have been posted, the Facebook post has gone viral in the medical circles and Kitesurfing world and couple has received "countless applications from physiotherapists around the world".

"We have received an amazing amount of support in no time from so many people," Mr Tronet said.

"For now we will need to go through everyone's applications to make sure to get her the best of the best, even though we wish we could bring everyone who helped and offered to help to our beautiful Union Island to learn to Kitesurf - that's how our romance started!"

To apply for this job, email zoesurgery@gmail.com with your CV and photo.