Dad fighting for his life after 'attack' in Benidorm arrives back in Merseyside after 27 hour ambulance journey

A man who was left fighting for his life in a Benidorm hospital after being gravely injured on a night out has returned to Merseyside. Andrew Frazer, 43, was plunged into a coma after suffering a severe head injury outside a nightclub in the popular tourist resort.

The dad of two, from St Helens, had travelled to Benidorm on November 13 to celebrate his brother Ian's birthday. But by 1am on November 14, not even 24 hours after touching down, Andrew was knocked unconscious in the street and rushed to hospital with a head injury.

As the stepdad-of-two did not have travel insurance, sister-in-law Claire said his wound was stapled and he was sent back to his hotel without a CT scan. The following day, his condition worsened and he was taken to another hospital, where a scan revealed a serious bleed on the brain. He underwent an emergency craniotomy, a surgical procedure removing part of the skull to access the brain, and was placed in an induced coma.

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A fundraiser set up to fund Andrew's safe journey back to the UK raised more than £28,000 in three days. But his family was hit with further bad news as they were told his injury was "too severe" for the flight.

Instead, Andrew and his fiancée Carrie made a gruelling 27-hour journey in the back of a private ambulance, arriving back in Merseyside today. He will be taken to Whiston Hospital for an assessment, and his family say it is likely he will be transferred to the Walton Centre for Neurology and Neurosurgery.

Claire, Carrie's sister, said: "His injury was too severe for even a medical flight. The paramedics came and assessed him and a doctor wouldn't give him a 'fit to fly'. They set off yesterday. My sister was in the ambulance with him the whole time and she said as they went over the Pyrenees mountains his blood pressure kept dropping and he was in a lot of pain, so a flight could have killed him."

She said Andrew, who works at Liverpool John Lennon Airport, came out of his coma towards the end of last week - but faces a long and difficult recovery.

She said: "He is conscious but he'll need an assessment to find out the level of his injury and how long his recovery is going to be. It's a massive relief that he's back in the UK and he's going to get the treatment he needs. We are massively thankful to everyone who has donated."