British fitness instructor, 35, in desperate need of a lung transplant is trapped in Middle East waiting for urgent medical evacuation to UK

As bombs rain down on Riyadh, a British fitness instructor struggles for his life in a Saudi intensive care unit.

Laura Storr, 35, from Shenfield, Essex, moved to the desert kingdom in 2020 to help open a boutique gym – but two years later she developed a rare and incurable lung disease.

The condition pulmonary veno-occlusive disease (PVOD) is rare, rapidly progressive, and has no cure; The only option is lung transplantation.

The Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge agreed to admit him but his condition is now too critical for a commercial flight home.

Bed-bound, permanently attached to an oxygen tank and coughing up blood, he can only listen to the explosions coming from beyond the hospital window.

His family are in a desperate race against time to bring him home as the cost of a medical vacuum flight rises to over £100,000 due to conflict in the Middle East – companies are pricing in the danger of flying from an active war zone.

Her distraught sister Emily told the Daily Mail she had just a few weeks left until she was evacuated for a transplant and launched an initiative. GoFundMe to help pay the eye-watering bill.

‘It really feels like we’re on a time limit and it’s terrifying. It’s a really scary feeling. ‘I feel nervous every day.’

The British fitness instructor moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in late 2020 to help open a new franchise of the boutique gym chain where he worked.

The 32-year-old said his sister, who was normally ‘always the life and soul’ of an event, was left ‘very unsettled’.

He said: ‘Your mind has a lot to play with your body, doesn’t it? So he tries to be as calm as possible to keep his heart at the same pace.

‘But it’s very difficult to tell someone to relax when you hear bombs outside the window. ‘This is really hard, it sucks.’

Her parents, John Storr, 75, and Freda Storr, 62, rushed to Riyadh two months ago to be by their daughter’s bedside, but are now struggling with their own health problems during their stay in Saudi Arabia.

Ms. Storr postponed her gallbladder surgery back home to be with her daughter, and Mr. Storr is now running out of arthritis and blood pressure medications.

The couple spends most of their nights sleeping on a mattress or chair in their daughter’s hospital room; Food and transportation costs are also increasing.

Emily, a yoga instructor and studio manager, said one night this week her family heard explosions right next to the hospital and were told to move away from the windows.

‘It was very scary,’ he said. ‘My mother is very afraid.’

Ms. Storr’s parents flew to Riyadh two months ago to be with their daughter, Laura, left, and spent most nights sleeping on a mattress or chair in their daughter’s hospital room

The US embassy in Riyadh was hit by drones earlier this month as Tehran launched retaliatory strikes in the Gulf region.

Witnesses heard a loud explosion in the early morning hours of March 3 and saw flames and smoke rising and the building being set on fire and damaged.

Emily said her sister, who has “one of the kindest hearts”, first moved to Furjiarh in the Middle East in 2019, then to Riyadh a year later, having previously worked as a spin cycle instructor for a company called 1Rebel in the UK.

He added that Laura had planned to return to the UK a few years later but was postponed due to a life-changing diagnosis two years later.

“My sister was very fond of nature and things like that, so she never thought she would end up living in the Middle East forever,” Ms. Storr said.

But in 2022, he was diagnosed with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), which causes the blood vessels in the lungs to narrow, causing the heart to work harder to pump oxygen around the body.

“Everything there is being played by ear, the focus is on his recovery and then getting back to England,” Emily said.

She said Laura was trying her best: ‘It’s chronic but you can live with it.

‘For example, he went through a period where he was taking some medications for the heart because the lungs were weakening the heart.

‘He would go about his day and then go home and get plenty of oxygen.’

At one point, determined to continue studying, Laura even led classes while on an oxygen tank before her condition worsened.

Ms Storr’s condition deteriorated rapidly last year, forcing her to leave work, use a constant supply of oxygen and enter intensive care in recent months (pictured left with her sister Emily)

It turned out that he had a rare form of PAH called PVOD; It is a disease that is very difficult to diagnose but progresses rapidly.

‘Unless he gets care, a potential lung transplant or a new injection that delivers protein into the body and they try that on patients with PVOD, his condition will continue to get worse,’ Emily said.

‘But obviously he needs to come back to the UK to settle in and start the next phase.’

But Emily said her sister ‘took a really bad turn’ three months ago.

Having spent most of his time in intensive care and on an oxygen tank, he is now almost entirely hospitalized, unable to fly home commercially despite the advice of clinicians.

‘The toilet chair is right next to the bed. ‘All he does is walk towards the chair and back into bed,’ Emily explained.

‘He was hoping they would get him into a stable place where he could get on the plane quickly.

‘He now needs to stay in hospital, where they know the situation will not improve.

‘But there’s nothing else Saudi can do for him.’

The family has been told Laura must receive a royal pardon for a lung transplant, which will likely not be given to a stranger.

A protein injection for the condition is also being trialled on a patient in the UK, to whom Laura has exclusive access.

The fitness trainer is also currently battling an infection that has further weakened his lungs and heart; doctors are desperately trying to drain the fluid from his body while coughing up blood.

Emily said: ‘There may come a time when he can’t fly. So this needs to happen this week or next week.’

As a foreigner ‘not normally resident’ in the UK, Ms Storr had to fight to get the NHS care for the transplant she needed and was given last week.

The Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge has said it will accept him as a patient, but it is now a matter of getting him there at the family’s own expense.

They were offered an eye-watering £108,600 for a medical evacuation flight; One company warned that this price could increase further and that it was a price the family could not afford to pay at the moment.

‘I think it would be a lot less but frankly that’s how much they charge us because of the conflict and risk. But they’re finding a route,” Ms. Storr said.

He added that his loved ones showed ‘beautiful generosity’: ‘My family is trying, we’re not a wealthy family so everyone is just trying to contribute.’

But Ms. Storr said efforts to move the process forward had been painfully slow and the ongoing war had made things even more difficult.

‘The embassy has done absolutely nothing all this time,’ he said. ‘Keep turning them away, they haven’t given them any information.’

A spokesperson for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) told the Daily Mail: ‘We are providing support to a British national in Riyadh and are in contact with their families.’