guided mountain bike, tour, accident, big hospital bill.

[AhmadA]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? I live in New York but the incident happened in san diego California.

I little background about me,
Self employed software programmer, not currently making any money, no health insurance, I live in NYC NY.

I was visiting San diego, through priceline.com I booked a guided mountain bike tour that would take me with a tour guide through the some of the mountains.

While we were riding we hit a rough patch on the road and my bike hit a small rock ( its a rocky road ) , I fly over the handlebar and land on my elbow and my head ( I was wearing a helmet ). I did pass out for 30 seconds and the tour guide helped position my head and was professional. now we are in the middle of the sand diego mountains and there was no way to get an EMT there. So the send a helicopter.
I get flown into lajolla hospital, they do tests on my head and other things and I am all ok. I get released. All of this happened 6 weeks ago.

I just got the bill today and its about 24 K, as in 24 thousand dollars. I am unemployed and with no insurance.

my question is: Is there anything I can do to have the tour guide company pay for this or shoulder some of the burden? it really was a rocky area?

Thanks.

 

[TheGeekess]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? I live in New York but the incident happened in san diego California.

I little background about me,
Self employed software programmer, not currently making any money, no health insurance, I live in NYC NY.

I was visiting San diego, through priceline.com I booked a guided mountain bike tour that would take me with a tour guide through the some of the mountains.

While we were riding we hit a rough patch on the road and my bike hit a small rock ( its a rocky road ) , I fly over the handlebar and land on my elbow and my head ( I was wearing a helmet ). I did pass out for 30 seconds and the tour guide helped position my head and was professional. now we are in the middle of the sand diego mountains and there was no way to get an EMT there. So the send a helicopter.
I get flown into lajolla hospital, they do tests on my head and other things and I am all ok. I get released. All of this happened 6 weeks ago.

I just got the bill today and its about 24 K, as in 24 thousand dollars. I am unemployed and with no insurance.

my question is: Is there anything I can do to have the tour guide company pay for this or shoulder some of the burden? it really was a rocky area?

Thanks.

I'm willing to bet that you signed an agreement that they are not responsible for any injury that happened during that tour.

 

[OHRoadwarrior]

So you have no money, yet you can afford to fly all the way cross country and pay for a mountain bike tour, in addition to all the other things you did. I wish I was that broke. No, you are the one who could not ride the bike. By definition, one would expect a mountain bike tour to involve less than ideal riding conditions, in addition to the waiver you should have signed.

 

[ecmst12]

What were you THINKING, going on such a dangerous adventure without having medical insurance??? Seriously, what part of you thought this was a good idea? I'm sure that there were waivers involved, I'm sure that you were well informed of the risks, the tour company did not make you crash, it's just one of those things that happens when you engage in risky activity - an accident. So you knew an accident could happen, you knew you could be seriously hurt, but you went anyway. I suggest you start looking for work as soon as you can so you can start making payments on your bills. You will probably be able to negotiate the fees down somewhat with the hospital and the various doctors that you saw, but you are going to be paying this off for a long time regardless, and you have no one to blame for this but your own poor judgement.

 

[CSO286]

You can talk to the hospital and the air ambulance about payment arrangments and charity care if you are truly indigent, but you can expect to owe this and be paying toward it for a good long time.

 

[swalsh411]

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Absolutely not.

If you could prove with substantial evidence that the tour went somewhere where the hazards were well beyond what a reasonable person would expect with such an expeditition then maybe. For example, if the tour guide knew the bridge was about to collapse and took everybody over it anyway, then maybe. But that's not what happened to you. You took a fall from an ordinary hazard that anybody who bikes offroad has to deal with. You have no case.