Martha Lane Fox, the co-founder of lastminute.com, is seriously ill in hospital following a car crash in Morocco.
The internet entrepreneur reportedly underwent emergency surgery to stop internal haemorrhaging after the car she was travelling in crashed into a tree. The Independent reports that she broke an arm and a leg in the accident, which took place near the seaside town of Essaouira on Sunday.
The newspaper reports that doctors refused to treat Lane Fox, who is thought to be worth more than £20 million, until they had established that she was able to pay for her treatment.
Brent Hoberman, co-founder of lastminute.com, is quoted as saying: “She had some bad injuries but they stopped the worst of them. The key message is that she is now recovering. I was astonished that there was some delay but we made sure they realised very fast that she could afford to pay.”
He added that Lane Fox’s involvement in lastminute.com should not be affected by the crash and that he was hoping she would be back in the UK this week.
The Independent says the P8 highway, which runs along the north Moroccan coast, is especially dangerous – in a country where fatalities from road accidents are 20 times more common than in the UK.
Report by Tim Gillett, News From Abroad
