A Strathmore man is raising money after his father suffered a life-threatening heart attack in the Dominican Republic.

Due to medical expenses, Frank Kelly has found himself unable to financially meet the ongoing procedures that are needed to save his life.

"Since my dad has retired, he has been spending his summers in the Dominican and his winters in Canada, but when COVID hit, he ended up getting stuck in the Dominican, and he has been there ever since," explained Ryan Kelly, Frank's son. 

Kelly said his dad's insurance had lapsed during his time in the Dominican.

"On June 10, we got a call that he was having a heart attack. Dad went to the hospital, but before they could do anything, they required a huge sum of money. We ended up paying that, but then we heard of all the damage in his heart."

According to Kelly, they found that his dad's right artery was 100 per cent blocked and his left artery was 90 per cent blocked. 

"They put two stints on his right artery to open it. They hope that is enough to stabilize and get him back to Canada, but he probably won't be able to fly for another eight days."

Kelly said that if his dad needs another surgery, which will be three stints and potentially a complete bypass with open heart surgery before he comes home, it will be another extensive amount of money. 

"The expenses so far are approaching $30,000. They quoted us at $28,000 without any additional aftercare. It is a tremendous amount of money for my three sisters and me to cover, so we started a GoFundMe account." 

Kelly says the $30,000 covers expenses paid out at the current moment, but if anything else needs to be done, that will be an additional $30,000, which will raise the cost to $60,000. 

"Anything will help, even if it is just $1. We have only lived in Strathmore for around three years, and at that time, we found that it is a wonderful community, so any help we get will be appreciated."

If you would like to donate to the Kelly family, you can HERE. 

Currently, $17,954 has been raised for Frank.

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