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A teenager put into a coma after developing pneumonia on a family holiday in Spain is back in Scotland after her relatives fundraised more than £80,000 to cover her medical bills and charter a flight home.

Bryony Duthie, 18, from Dundee, who suffers from a rare chronic kidney condition, was brought to Edinburgh from Malaga in a coma on Wednesday evening on a chartered £33,000 IAS Medical air ambulance flight, accompanied by her mother Stephanie and medical staff.

Her mother said Bryony had a “stable first night” back in the UK but doctors at Ninewells Hospital and Medical School in Dundee were having to “start from scratch” to understand what is wrong.

Ms Duthie, 37, said: “Yesterday was hard going mentally for me – it was really draining. Every beep of the machine, my heart was through the roof.

“I’m absolutely in bits – my nerves are shot to pieces.”

Bryony was admitted to the Vithas Xanit International Hospital Benalmadena on the Costa del Sol on 16 July, where a CT scan revealed she had pneumonia and she was placed in a coma.

She spent 10 days in the private hospital, where doctors tried several times to bring her out of the coma, but to no avail.

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Now back in Scotland, Ms Duthie is seeking answers.

“This is now where the real problem starts,” she said.

“We just don’t know what neurologically she’s going to be like. It’s not like she’s had pneumonia and now it’s going to be fine. This is going to be a long road.”

Undated handout photo of Bryony Duthie(right), with her mum Stephanie, who is in a critical condition in Spain after falling ill while on holiday with her family and who now faces a medical bill of more than £13,000 after just two days of treatment. Bryony Duthie, 18, from Dundee, Scotland, suffers from chronic kidney problems and was taken to a private hospital on the Costa Del Sol on Sunday, where she was put into an induced coma after being diagnosed with pneumonia and suffering a seizure. Is
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Bryony and her mother Stephanie

Undated handout photo of Bryony Duthie with her grandfather, Pete Duthie, who is in a critical condition in Spain after falling ill while on holiday with her family and who now faces a medical bill of more than £13,000 after just two days of treatment. Bryony Duthie, 18, from Dundee, Scotland, suffers from chronic kidney problems and was taken to a private hospital on the Costa Del Sol on Sunday, where she was put into an induced coma after being diagnosed with pneumonia and suffering a seizure.
Image:
Bryony with her grandfather Pete

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One of the family’s main concerns is whether Bryony will have any long-term symptoms or has suffered brain damage.

“It’s just going to be mental torture,” Ms Duthie said.

“People keep saying take it an hour at a time, but that’s easier said than done when you’re the parent. I’m looking ahead to the quality of her life.”

But they will not have answers until doctors have carried out further tests, which will take several days, if not weeks.

“They don’t really know what’s going on and have told us to be patient and let them work,” she said.

“The doctors are basically starting from scratch with tests. She’s back with the people who have dealt with her in the past.

“They need to do loads of investigations and an MRI scan, but that won’t be until next week.”

Bryony’s family set up a GoFundMe page to help with her medical bills and the cost of her flight home, which has raised more than £84,000.

“I’m so glad to be home and the staff here have been so welcoming,” her mother added.

“I just want to say, I can never thank everybody enough. We would ever have been able to get home without the generosity of people who donated.”

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Friedrich Merz: German chancellor-in-waiting vows to ‘create unity’ in Europe

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Friedrich Merz: German chancellor-in-waiting vows to 'create unity' in Europe

Friedrich Merz, who is set to become the new German chancellor, has vowed to “create unity” in Europe as it adjusts to the new Trump administration and Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Mr Merz’s task will be complicated by the need to form a coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats of outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz, who will remain in office for the immediate future.

He has repeatedly pledged not to work with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, despite its second-place finish but which is under observation by the country’s intelligence agency for suspected right-wing extremism.

Mr Merz’s conservative Christian Democrats and their Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union, which won with 28.5% of the votes, and the Social Democrats have a combined 328 seats in the 630-seat parliament.

The 69-year-old, who put toughening Germany’s immigration laws at the forefront of the election campaign, said he hopes to complete a deal by Easter.

Experts believe this could prove to be a challenging timescale as the rivals try to find common ground over key policies.

Co-leader of the Social Democrats, Lars Klingbeil, indicated a deal with Mr Merz is not a formality.

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The path to power may not be smooth for Merz

He said: “The ball is in Friedrich Merz’s court. Only the course of any talks will show whether a government can be formed.”

With US President Donald Trump back in the White House and tensions rising over how to resolve the war in Ukraine, Mr Merz wants to unify Europe in the face of challenges from the US and Russia.

“I have no illusions at all about what is happening from America,” he told supporters.

“We are under such massive pressure… my absolute priority now is really to create unity in Europe.”

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At a media conference later, he added: “There are three topics we need to talk about. Of course, external and security policy – especially following the statements coming out of Washington.

“It is clear that we as Europeans need to be able to act swiftly. We need to be able to defend ourselves. That is a topic that is a top priority in the next few weeks.”

Mr Merz said he remains “hopeful” of maintaining the transatlantic relationship, but warned if it “is destroyed, it will not only be to the detriment of Europe, it will also be to the detriment of America”.

On the other key issues, he added: “Another important topic is the immigration – that is an area where we have proposals. I suppose the Social Democrats will be prepared to talk to us about this as well.

“The third topic is the economic situation. We have to protect work in the industrial sector in Germany.”

He also earlier used social media to say “Europe stands unwaveringly by Ukraine’s side” and how “we must put Ukraine in a position of strength”.

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Pope Francis ‘resumes some work’ after ‘slight improvement’ in health, Vatican says

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Pope Francis 'resumes some work' after 'slight improvement' in health, Vatican says

Pope Francis’s health has shown a “slight improvement” but he remains in a critical condition, the Vatican has said.

The Pope, 88, has been at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital since 14 February and is being treated for double pneumonia and chronic bronchitis.

In a statement on Monday evening, the Vatican said: “The clinical conditions of the Holy Father, in their critical state, show a slight improvement.

“Even today there were no episodes of asthmatic respiratory crises; some laboratory tests improved.

“Monitoring of mild renal failure is not a cause for concern. Oxygen therapy continues, although with slightly reduced flow and oxygen percentage

“The doctors, considering the complexity of the clinical picture, are prudently not releasing the prognosis yet. In the morning he received the Eucharist, while in the afternoon he resumed work activity.

“In the evening he called the Parish Priest of the Parish of Gaza to express his paternal closeness. Pope Francis thanks all the people of God who have gathered in these days to pray for his health.”

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A gift any Russian leader could only dream of is in Putin’s grasp – a NATO without US military support

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A gift any Russian leader could only dream of is in Putin's grasp - a NATO without US military support

In a strictly military sense, the war in Ukraine is not going so badly for Kyiv. 

Russian territorial gains on the ground have slowed to a crawl since last November for which they are losing, on average, some 1,500 men every day.

They have almost – but still not quite – taken Toretsk. And after months of being on the verge of overwhelming the other key strategic towns of Chasiv Yar and Pokrovsk, Russian forces still remain outside them.

Russia’s massive air bombing campaign against the Ukrainian power grid, its critical infrastructure and civilian targets has not brought Kyiv to its knees, though this has been far and away the toughest winter of Russia’s air offensive against Ukraine.

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And in the Black Sea, Ukraine has chased the Russian navy away from its western waters and thus kept its vital shipping routes open from the Odesa ports to the Mediterranean and the Danube Basin. This is a strategic battle Ukraine has unquestionably won.

But with so much material help from Iran, North Korea and China, Russia is obviously prepared to carry on the war, even though on current trends, its own economy will be pretty shaky by the end of this year.

If Western powers, particularly the United States, continued with their previous levels of support, then Ukraine could carry on as well, if it were minded to keep fighting, even with its more limited pool of manpower.

But the battlefield doesn’t matter much any more. The political ground has dramatically shifted under Kyiv and its principal backers in Europe.

The US seems to have suddenly reversed its position under President Trump, and it is driving Ukraine into a very rapid, so-called ‘peace deal’. Serious negotiations have not yet begun, but top US decision-makers seem to want to give Moscow more than it could ever have dreamed of when its “special military operation” in Ukraine went so spectacularly wrong three years ago.

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Three years of war in Ukraine

Moscow now feels it has a very good chance of keeping all its military gains, getting even parts of the Ukrainian regions it hasn’t yet conquered, getting some relief from sanctions, US investment in its economy and re-entry into the G7, which would go back to being a G8.

It will also be making demands on what Kyiv will and will not be allowed to do and what NATO should do to “reassure” Moscow that it won’t have to invade anyone else in an act of self-defence.

Most of all, the US is holding out the tantalizing prospect to Russia that NATO’s “transatlantic dimension” may be militarily finished under the Trump administration. That implies that if the Europeans end up fighting Russia in the future, the US will stand aside.

That prospect is the greatest free gift Washington could ever give Moscow.

Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, even Gorbachev and Yeltsin, fervently wished for it but never even got close. Putin may feel it is now within his grasp, whatever happens next in Ukraine.

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