British tourist Alan Kirby trapped in Greece due to travel insurance error has died

The devastated family of a British tourist trapped in Greece due to a travel insurance error have revealed he has died. Alan Kirby fell ill while on holiday and was put on a ventilator, with his family facing a £14,000 hospital bill.

After suffering a pain in his side at dinner, which he initially put down to throwing his stepdaughter’s children around in the sea in Zante, Alan woke up breathless and sought medical advice.

Doctors advised him to return to the UK for a biopsy on a mass in his lung they feared might be cancer. However, before they could get home, Alan’s health deteriorated and he was put on a ventilator – prohibiting him from taking a commercial flight back to the UK – and was airlifted to a private hospital in Athens.

The 67-year-old car valeter suffered ‘septic’ shock and passed away on Monday (August 25), his family confirmed. Family members had been fundraising to cover the £45,000 cost of an ambulance flight home, but in a post on the GoFundMe website, his step daughter Liza Whitemore, 40, posted: “We would like to thank all your support and donations over the last eight weeks. It comes with great sadness that Alan gained his wings in the night in Athens, we will be heading out to Athens to have a cremation.”

His family had raised £9,500 of their target before his passing which will now go towards the cost of his cremation.

Alan, from Marston Magna in Somerset, was three days into his holiday with his partner Helen Whitemore, 62, Liza and her three daughters, when he fell ill on July 5. He looked “dreadful, grey and pale” during a family dinner in Tsilivi, his family said, so went back to the hotel.

Liza said: “At dinner he had aching pain all down the right side of his torso. He thought it was from throwing my kids while playing in the sea earlier in the day.”

He woke up breathless and went to a local clinic in the morning, and after extensive testing was sent to a local hospital. The couple say they thought he had a chest infection and needed antibiotics.

“But the doctor, who must have had the clinic’s test results, said, ‘antibiotics won’t cure cancer’,” said Liza. “Everyone was petrified, nobody knew what was going on. After five hours, they told my mum she needed to go back to England for a biopsy, because they couldn’t tell from the X-ray if Alan had cancer.”

The hospital had spotted a mass in Alan’s right lung, which he was already aware of, but said British doctors had told him it was a benign fatty tissue mass in December 2024. Lisa added: “The insurance didn’t know about it.”

Two days later Alan was “fitting” in his hospital bed, disoriented and dehydrated with oxygen levels of only 36%. “They put him on a non-invasive ventilator and there was talk that night of putting him in a coma but then they said he might not come round because of his lungs,” said Liza.

The insurance company agreed to fly Alan to a private hospital in Athens via a helicopter ambulance. He couldn’t fly to the UK because it was too long a flight and he needed to remain on a ventilator.

But when Alan arrived in Athens, the insurance company contacted Lisa to say they were checking Alan’s pre-existing conditions. The checks took five days and the insurance company requested Alan’s UK GP records – and discovered Alan’s ‘pre-existing condition’, the mass in his lung.

The insurance company then told Alan’s family they will pay for Alan’s care up until the checks began – five days of private hospital care costing £14,000. Alan was moved to Athens’ General Hospital where his care was covered by his GHIC card.

After his transfer to a hospital in Athens he was placed in a medically-induced coma which he sadly never woke up from.

Liza, a private care assistant from Wincanton in Somerset, said family and friends are invited to the local pub for a ‘live link’ up to Alan’s cremation in Athens on Saturday (August ).

Liza had said previously: “We know we’ve made the mistake [with the insurance] – that’s the problem. My mum had gone into the bank that she had insurance with and they said, ‘just go on holiday, you don’t have to do anything’. They didn’t know about the mass. And he was well before – he was working as a car valeter the day before the holiday.”