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The Springfield News-Sun has kept you updated on all developments in this story ever since it first broke earlier this month.
A Clark County mother and her son are glad to be home and overwhelmed by the support they’ve received after a cruise they were on turned into a “nightmare and terror.”
Peyton Johnson, 12, of Park Layne, was forced off a Carnival Cruise ship June 1 to undergo an emergency appendectomy.
More than 13 days later, the family returned home Thursday.
“It was a nightmare, it was a terror,” Christie Johnson said. “But when it’s all said and done, I honestly think it’s nothing short of a miracle.”
For days, she wondered how she was going to be able to pay so that she could have her son flown back to the U.S. But the generosity of friends, family and complete strangers has been overwhelming. Donors have contributed nearly $18,000 on a GoFundMe.com website to help the Johnsons pay the medical bills.
“There’s no words that I could ever say to express how much it means to me,” she said with tears in her eyes.
“Everything all these people did — people that I love and know and people that I don’t even know.”
The cruise ship the family was on left them in Mexico because Peyton needed surgery. The mother and son had federal pass cards — which permit land and sea travel between the U.S. and Mexico — but they did not have passports to fly home, Christie Johnson said.
They also did not have travelers insurance that would have covered the costs of medical help outside of the U.S., she added.
Thankful that surgery went well and her son was alive, Christie Johnson said she had faith she would somehow find the money to to pay for the more than $10,000 it would cost to fly Peyton home by medical escorts.
“I didn’t know how we were going to get out of there and when we were going to get out of there, but I knew that God was going to carry us through the rest of it,” she said.
The pair was flown back to the U.S. June 6 and was taken to a children’s hospital in Houston. Peyton was released from the hospital Wednesday and they flew home Thursday.
The boy said he was shocked when he saw how much money people donated to help him.
“It made me feel really happy and it let me know that people actually care about each other,” Peyton said.
While in the hospital, he said knowing the money his mother had to pay scared him.
Carnival reimbursed the Johnsons for their cruise fare, sent an interpreter to help them in the hospital and payed for their flight from Houston to Ohio, said Vance Gullisken, a Carnival cruise line representative.
If the family ever takes a trip outside of the U.S. again, Christie Johnson said she will make sure to buy traveler’s insurance and have passports just in case.
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