His family want to get him home but money is the problem.
Mr Harris, 53, who worked offshore with a Singapore-based company installing oil and gas pipelines, on oil rigs and was on one of his regular vacations in Phuket, when he was hit by a car driven by a Belgian, a regular visitor to the island.
Mr Harris, 53, from Louisiana in the United States, was first sent to Patong Hospital and then transferred to Vachira Phuket Hospital where he underwent five hours of brain surgery.
The operation saved his life but he was severely injured. It took him two months to come out of a coma, and he is still badly disabled.
“George is not a vegetable; he reacts to people. But he can’t speak or do anything for himself,” his younger brother Hal, 49, told The Phuket News.
Like George, Hal Harris worked offshore and stayed in Phuket when on leave. He says he had to abandon his job after the accident in order to look after George.
Dr Lersak Leenanithikul, the doctor who performed the brain surgery and has been tending to Mr Harris since then, says, “He was in a coma for a couple of months. After various treatments and physical therapy he has improved and has started to react to what people say.”
But Dr Lersak is not optimistic about his chances of recovery, saying there is “almost zero possibility of him recovering completely and living a normal life.”
Mr Harris is currently the longest-staying patient in the hospital. His family want to move him back to the US so that he can be cared for in a more familiar environment.
Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas, which has a partnership with Vachira Hospital, has agreed to take care of him – George has US social insurance that will cover the costs in the States - but not in Thailand.
Meanwhile, treatment at Vachira has been paid for from the Belgian driver’s insurance, and the Thai hospital is not looking for further payments.
But there is one big hurdle: the cost of flying home to the US. The total cost of repatriation to Dallas is B658,000, which neither Mr Harris nor his family have. That’s the cost of air tickets for him and a nurse to take care of him on the flight, plus portable medical equipment such as oxygen and a portable intensive care unit.
Because of Mr Harris’s condition – his inability to help himself – help from the US Embassy in Bangkok requires considerable legal manoeuvrings in the US, which will cost hundreds of thousands of baht – which the family do not have.
The family are now hoping to get George Harris home without embassy help, and are hoping that good-hearted people will donate funds for this.
Donations can be deposited with the Vachira Phuket Hospital branch of TMB Bank, account number 495-2-24342-8, account name: Foundation for Foreigners’ Welfare. SWIFT Code: TMBKTHBK
The bank spends roughly B2 million every year treating foreigners who have no insurance and no funds to pay for treatment.