April 18, 2025 • 13 mins
Dr. Vanessa Tyler has a conversation with Joshua Fekete who lives with his family in a foreign country. Joshua shares his remarkable and terrifying story about surviving a heart attack, a deadly earthquake and financial hardship while living in Thailand. Joshua details his ordeal of having to pay unexpected medical bills while in a foreign country, with no help from his American insurance provider or the U.S. Embassy. The family had to resort to a GoFundMe campaign to help cover their medical costs and to be able to return home to Georgia.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
If it sounds like the world is coming to an end,
it certainly felt like it for Joshua Fagetti.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I won't say I'm totally out of the woods yet,
but feeling much better than I was.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
And he's not just talking about that seven point seven
massive earthquake that rattled Meanmar back on March twenty eighth,
with powerful aftershocks shaking all the way to Thailand, which
is where Joshua is located. At the center of it all,
more than three thousand, six hundred lives gone, religious ruins
well completely ruined temples, toppled, statues that towered for centuries,
(00:42):
reduced to rubble. Joshua Fagetti had problems bigger than a
massive earthquake. His life was at the brink. He and
his family just relocated to Thailand.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I didn't come to Thailand to die.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
But he nearly did. We're heading to the emergency room
in black Land and now, as a brown person, you
just feels so invisible.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Where we're from.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Brothers and sisters.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I welcome you to this joyful.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Day and we celebrate freedom.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Where we are.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I know someone's heard something and where we're going, We
the people means all the people.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
The Black Information Network presents Blackland with your host Vanessa Tyler.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
What a life experience to get an offer to teach
in Thailand, which is what Joshua Faketty did. He really
just got there maybe about a week or so, and
a life where death emergency happened.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Joshua, thank you for joining me.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, so, I'm glad to be here, glad to be
speaking with you.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
First, I'd like to start with how are you feeling.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I'm still recovering, just taking a day by day monitoring
my vitals. Just went to the follow up with the
doctor a few days ago, the cardiologist, the surgeon that
saved my life, and then I just followed up with
the primary care physician to do a full panel work
(02:11):
up and everything came back looking pretty good. I won't
say I'm totally out of the woods yet, but doing
much better than I was before we left the United States,
and I went to all of my doctor necessary doctor visits.
I was cleared to do whatever I needed to do.
And then when I got here, I was okay for
(02:34):
the first couple of days when we landed in Thailand, Bangkok, Thailand,
and then like after the second or third day, I
noticed I wasn't feeling too great, and I was sweat
profusely for about four or five days.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
He dismissed all that excessive sweating as the weather.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I thought it was just because of the weather here,
because it's like very tropical, it's very humid, is always
in the nineties, so you know, things are a little
it's a lot different.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
His wife noticed he was sleeping a lot and had
migrain level headaches, maybe a sinus infection, but when he fainted,
he knew it was serious.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
And I toppled over the side of the bed. I
hit my head on the side of the wall into
the floor. I didn't realize what happened. And then I
picked my head up, and I'm like, oh, I'm probably
super dehydrated because I've been sweating so much. And then
next thing, you know, it happens again, and I wake
up and I see my spouse and my kids like
(03:37):
running around like frantically and screaming, and they grabbed the
hotel staff, and then it just was a nightmare, and
I was like, what's happening, And my spouse is just
saying like, hey, you uh, you fainted. You keep me
you keep going out and you keep coming back, and
you keep going out, and you're like you were looking pale.
(03:59):
Your lips are purple. And I was like, I don't
know what's going on. I didn't come to, you know,
Thailand to die. Came to like started, you know, this
new adventure with us, this new venture with us, this
new life with us. And I didn't come here to die.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Joshua, his wife, and his adorable kids, ages eight and five,
thought this would be an adventure living in another country,
being part of the culture. The job offer was sweet,
teaching school, they would get help finding a house, they
would have a nanny, and their money goes a long way.
Here an entirely different experience.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
But we're like, this is a good thing. Change is good.
You have to adapt, learn new cultures. And this is
what we want you guys to do is eventually learn
new cultures, not just America, but learn different cultures of
the world.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
All that was slipping away as he laid waiting for
the doctor. After being rushed to the nearest hospital from
their hotel by ambulance. The cardiologist walked in with the news.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
He's like, you had you suffered a heart attack. He
was like, you're loved. Pressure was really low, like I
think it was like seventy over forty, so that's extremely low.
And then I remember after that they came in, one
of his assistants came in and told me, you're going
in for a cast lab. And then that's when I
(05:20):
went in for the first surgery, which was the cath lab.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
That was the first surgery. Opened his arteries immediately, and then.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
He discovered some things during that cat lab. And yeah,
it was it was a whirlwind and I could but
that's when it was like right after the cath lab.
He performed the cath lab. I remember laying on the
table and I felt like a rumble and I was like,
I don't know what that is. And I'm in that
look and I see one of like the nurses. They're
(05:47):
running back and forth like frantic, like something's happening.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
It was the earthquake in me and mar so big
seven point seven. It was felt hard in Bangkok. A
high rise under construction fell crumbling into pieces.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Daddy, take me outside.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
You're luing in the hospital after having a surgery where
they're kind of opening your artery site zoom.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
And then yes, in the.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Middle of all of that you hear a rumble.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yes, that's exactly what happens. Like right after he finished
doing the cast lab, he looks at the screen, he
sees what's going on, and he like gets up, he
walks away, and then I see a nurse running right
after that. So I'm like in pain from the cast
lab because he barely numbed it because he was trying
(06:40):
to get me back you know, stable. And the next thing
you know, I see the nurse running and they grabbed me,
and then I hear earthquake. It's an earthquake, seven or
eight people coming. They carry me out on like this
durable stretcher, I guess you could call it. And I
hear earthquake, earthquake. I was literally up under like a
(07:02):
banana tree looking like some bananas that's about to fall
on my head while I'm in a bed and I'm
in pain, and it can't really administer anything for like
the pain or anything else, or let me go to
the restroom or anything because everyone's in shock. Like we
have to get clearance from you know, the government or
the hospital director or to go back in. So I'm
(07:25):
sitting there for that long and then after that we
go back in and that's when they approached me and
then they say, okay, we're going to take you in
for a CT. And that's when they did the CT
of my lower extremities to find out that I had
a pendicitis.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
The thirty six year old was in a foreign country
with his young family, had a heart attack, had his
appendix removed. Oh, and the earthquake. But there was one
more issue, and this was a problem, a big one.
Talk about stress, stress of a heart attack, rest of
an earth quake, and then the added stress that you
couldn't leave. They were holding you basically hostage in the hospital.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
So that was another stress added on while I'm trying
to recover.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Joshua Pakeetti had a problem after two surgeries for his
heart and to remove his appendix in a foreign country,
he was handed a bill, one for which he could
not just write a check.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
They basically want the entire balance, the entire balance up front,
and I was like, I don't have that.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
The hotel manager was kind enough to put up the
down payment.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
So he's like, please, please, I don't want to see
him die.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
It was a weekend and although the family had health
insurance in America, the hospital demanded more proof, more collateral.
How much was the bill?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
It was like my mouse kept changing. I would say
it was one amount at one point, then it went up.
Then I was supposed to go back to a regular room.
Then it went up again because it held me and
the ICEU. But it ended up being like five hundred
and eighty thousand and bought, which equates to almost sixteen
thousand US dollars sixteen grand.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
The hospital business office wanted now.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
After like everything's done. They were saying, hey, you have
to pay this in full.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
You can't leave all those sixteen thousand dollars is not
a lot for two surgeries. I see you an ambulance.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
I told my wife, if we would have got this
done in the States, this would have been like half
a million dollar bill. It's still stressful because I didn't
have sixteen thousand handy.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
For Ketty's wife contacted the US Embassy in Bangkok for help.
Even then, he says, the hospital finance staff was so aggressive.
The Black family was afraid.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
He says, Number one, your insurance is not paying. Number two,
the US Embassy is not going to help you. You
need to make a payment or you're not getting out
of here. He talked to me like cold, straight, like
like that, while I'm in my hospital bed trying to
recover in pain.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Then the family we got a call from the US
Embassy in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
He said, we can't help you financially right now. We
can't help you financially. We usually would, but we can't.
But we told them to let you do a payment
plan and once they serve that payment plan, they should
be discharging you today.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
They still waited for hours for them to work out
the payment plan. Six months was the max, but the
first payment had to be paid. Now they had to
go to the nearest police station to document the debt,
making it official for Kenny's mother back in Georgia started
to GoFundMe, which is how they got the down payment.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
We're still like raising money to even get the rest
of the balance and get plane tickets to go back
to Georgia.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
They're only going back to check with the doctors because
Thailand is the place they want to live.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Oh hotel is the best in the world. At the
end of the week, you will be an entirely different person.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
To Thailand and a week of name.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Of memories the country made even more popular with the
HBO hit show The White Lotus, What happens kin stays entitled.
Although not familiar with the hit show, Faketti says what
he likes most despite the hospital experience, the people. They
are kind.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
They're very welcoming and very nice people. Everywhere we go,
Like even if you leave like your laptop or your
drink on a counter for over an hour, no one
will go up and take it or touch it or
tamper with it. They have a very honorable system that
they go by, and they literally have like they're mostly Buddhists,
(11:45):
I believe, and they have like temples everywhere, like little
altars everywhere. So I'm like, maybe that's why, because they're
so heavy into their religion, why they're so nice and honoring,
because they live by like an honor code.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
And the dollar goes along.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
You have a remote job, your money can stretch a
lot further here than in the States where everything is
super inflating and possibly going to go up even more.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
What about the racial component, How are African Americans treated?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yes, and that was another thing we were shocked about.
Everybody just respects you as a human here.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
As we spoke from his apartment in Bangkok. He still
recovers with the resolve to pay their medical bill and
stay continue on their adventure. The family does have a
gofund be set up by his mother titled Help Bring
My Family Home.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
You've been surviving off like family help or the goalfund
me anything that comes in with that. So we're just
pretty much relying on God and faith right now.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Joshua Faketty, please take it easy as you recover.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I'm Vanessa Tyler. Be sure to like and subscribe to
Blackland to catch the latest episode. A new one drops
every week.
If it sounds like the world is coming to an end,
it certainly felt like it for Joshua Fagetti.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I won't say I'm totally out of the woods yet,
but feeling much better than I was.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
And he's not just talking about that seven point seven
massive earthquake that rattled Meanmar back on March twenty eighth,
with powerful aftershocks shaking all the way to Thailand, which
is where Joshua is located. At the center of it all,
more than three thousand, six hundred lives gone, religious ruins
well completely ruined temples, toppled, statues that towered for centuries,
(00:42):
reduced to rubble. Joshua Fagetti had problems bigger than a
massive earthquake. His life was at the brink. He and
his family just relocated to Thailand.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I didn't come to Thailand to die.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
But he nearly did. We're heading to the emergency room
in black Land and now, as a brown person, you
just feels so invisible.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Where we're from.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Brothers and sisters.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I welcome you to this joyful.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Day and we celebrate freedom.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Where we are.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I know someone's heard something and where we're going, We
the people means all the people.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
The Black Information Network presents Blackland with your host Vanessa Tyler.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
What a life experience to get an offer to teach
in Thailand, which is what Joshua Faketty did. He really
just got there maybe about a week or so, and
a life where death emergency happened.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Joshua, thank you for joining me.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, so, I'm glad to be here, glad to be
speaking with you.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
First, I'd like to start with how are you feeling.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I'm still recovering, just taking a day by day monitoring
my vitals. Just went to the follow up with the
doctor a few days ago, the cardiologist, the surgeon that
saved my life, and then I just followed up with
the primary care physician to do a full panel work
(02:11):
up and everything came back looking pretty good. I won't
say I'm totally out of the woods yet, but doing
much better than I was before we left the United States,
and I went to all of my doctor necessary doctor visits.
I was cleared to do whatever I needed to do.
And then when I got here, I was okay for
(02:34):
the first couple of days when we landed in Thailand, Bangkok, Thailand,
and then like after the second or third day, I
noticed I wasn't feeling too great, and I was sweat
profusely for about four or five days.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
He dismissed all that excessive sweating as the weather.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I thought it was just because of the weather here,
because it's like very tropical, it's very humid, is always
in the nineties, so you know, things are a little
it's a lot different.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
His wife noticed he was sleeping a lot and had
migrain level headaches, maybe a sinus infection, but when he fainted,
he knew it was serious.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
And I toppled over the side of the bed. I
hit my head on the side of the wall into
the floor. I didn't realize what happened. And then I
picked my head up, and I'm like, oh, I'm probably
super dehydrated because I've been sweating so much. And then
next thing, you know, it happens again, and I wake
up and I see my spouse and my kids like
(03:37):
running around like frantically and screaming, and they grabbed the
hotel staff, and then it just was a nightmare, and
I was like, what's happening, And my spouse is just
saying like, hey, you uh, you fainted. You keep me
you keep going out and you keep coming back, and
you keep going out, and you're like you were looking pale.
(03:59):
Your lips are purple. And I was like, I don't
know what's going on. I didn't come to, you know,
Thailand to die. Came to like started, you know, this
new adventure with us, this new venture with us, this
new life with us. And I didn't come here to die.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Joshua, his wife, and his adorable kids, ages eight and five,
thought this would be an adventure living in another country,
being part of the culture. The job offer was sweet,
teaching school, they would get help finding a house, they
would have a nanny, and their money goes a long way.
Here an entirely different experience.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
But we're like, this is a good thing. Change is good.
You have to adapt, learn new cultures. And this is
what we want you guys to do is eventually learn
new cultures, not just America, but learn different cultures of
the world.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
All that was slipping away as he laid waiting for
the doctor. After being rushed to the nearest hospital from
their hotel by ambulance. The cardiologist walked in with the news.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
He's like, you had you suffered a heart attack. He
was like, you're loved. Pressure was really low, like I
think it was like seventy over forty, so that's extremely low.
And then I remember after that they came in, one
of his assistants came in and told me, you're going
in for a cast lab. And then that's when I
(05:20):
went in for the first surgery, which was the cath lab.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
That was the first surgery. Opened his arteries immediately, and then.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
He discovered some things during that cat lab. And yeah,
it was it was a whirlwind and I could but
that's when it was like right after the cath lab.
He performed the cath lab. I remember laying on the
table and I felt like a rumble and I was like,
I don't know what that is. And I'm in that
look and I see one of like the nurses. They're
(05:47):
running back and forth like frantic, like something's happening.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
It was the earthquake in me and mar so big
seven point seven. It was felt hard in Bangkok. A
high rise under construction fell crumbling into pieces.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Daddy, take me outside.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
You're luing in the hospital after having a surgery where
they're kind of opening your artery site zoom.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
And then yes, in the.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Middle of all of that you hear a rumble.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yes, that's exactly what happens. Like right after he finished
doing the cast lab, he looks at the screen, he
sees what's going on, and he like gets up, he
walks away, and then I see a nurse running right
after that. So I'm like in pain from the cast
lab because he barely numbed it because he was trying
(06:40):
to get me back you know, stable. And the next thing
you know, I see the nurse running and they grabbed me,
and then I hear earthquake. It's an earthquake, seven or
eight people coming. They carry me out on like this
durable stretcher, I guess you could call it. And I
hear earthquake, earthquake. I was literally up under like a
(07:02):
banana tree looking like some bananas that's about to fall
on my head while I'm in a bed and I'm
in pain, and it can't really administer anything for like
the pain or anything else, or let me go to
the restroom or anything because everyone's in shock. Like we
have to get clearance from you know, the government or
the hospital director or to go back in. So I'm
(07:25):
sitting there for that long and then after that we
go back in and that's when they approached me and
then they say, okay, we're going to take you in
for a CT. And that's when they did the CT
of my lower extremities to find out that I had
a pendicitis.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
The thirty six year old was in a foreign country
with his young family, had a heart attack, had his
appendix removed. Oh, and the earthquake. But there was one
more issue, and this was a problem, a big one.
Talk about stress, stress of a heart attack, rest of
an earth quake, and then the added stress that you
couldn't leave. They were holding you basically hostage in the hospital.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
So that was another stress added on while I'm trying
to recover.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Joshua Pakeetti had a problem after two surgeries for his
heart and to remove his appendix in a foreign country,
he was handed a bill, one for which he could
not just write a check.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
They basically want the entire balance, the entire balance up front,
and I was like, I don't have that.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
The hotel manager was kind enough to put up the
down payment.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
So he's like, please, please, I don't want to see
him die.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
It was a weekend and although the family had health
insurance in America, the hospital demanded more proof, more collateral.
How much was the bill?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
It was like my mouse kept changing. I would say
it was one amount at one point, then it went up.
Then I was supposed to go back to a regular room.
Then it went up again because it held me and
the ICEU. But it ended up being like five hundred
and eighty thousand and bought, which equates to almost sixteen
thousand US dollars sixteen grand.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
The hospital business office wanted now.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
After like everything's done. They were saying, hey, you have
to pay this in full.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
You can't leave all those sixteen thousand dollars is not
a lot for two surgeries. I see you an ambulance.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
I told my wife, if we would have got this
done in the States, this would have been like half
a million dollar bill. It's still stressful because I didn't
have sixteen thousand handy.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
For Ketty's wife contacted the US Embassy in Bangkok for help.
Even then, he says, the hospital finance staff was so aggressive.
The Black family was afraid.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
He says, Number one, your insurance is not paying. Number two,
the US Embassy is not going to help you. You
need to make a payment or you're not getting out
of here. He talked to me like cold, straight, like
like that, while I'm in my hospital bed trying to
recover in pain.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Then the family we got a call from the US
Embassy in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
He said, we can't help you financially right now. We
can't help you financially. We usually would, but we can't.
But we told them to let you do a payment
plan and once they serve that payment plan, they should
be discharging you today.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
They still waited for hours for them to work out
the payment plan. Six months was the max, but the
first payment had to be paid. Now they had to
go to the nearest police station to document the debt,
making it official for Kenny's mother back in Georgia started
to GoFundMe, which is how they got the down payment.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
We're still like raising money to even get the rest
of the balance and get plane tickets to go back
to Georgia.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
They're only going back to check with the doctors because
Thailand is the place they want to live.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Oh hotel is the best in the world. At the
end of the week, you will be an entirely different person.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
To Thailand and a week of name.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Of memories the country made even more popular with the
HBO hit show The White Lotus, What happens kin stays entitled.
Although not familiar with the hit show, Faketti says what
he likes most despite the hospital experience, the people. They
are kind.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
They're very welcoming and very nice people. Everywhere we go,
Like even if you leave like your laptop or your
drink on a counter for over an hour, no one
will go up and take it or touch it or
tamper with it. They have a very honorable system that
they go by, and they literally have like they're mostly Buddhists,
(11:45):
I believe, and they have like temples everywhere, like little
altars everywhere. So I'm like, maybe that's why, because they're
so heavy into their religion, why they're so nice and honoring,
because they live by like an honor code.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
And the dollar goes along.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
You have a remote job, your money can stretch a
lot further here than in the States where everything is
super inflating and possibly going to go up even more.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
What about the racial component, How are African Americans treated?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yes, and that was another thing we were shocked about.
Everybody just respects you as a human here.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
As we spoke from his apartment in Bangkok. He still
recovers with the resolve to pay their medical bill and
stay continue on their adventure. The family does have a
gofund be set up by his mother titled Help Bring
My Family Home.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
You've been surviving off like family help or the goalfund
me anything that comes in with that. So we're just
pretty much relying on God and faith right now.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Joshua Faketty, please take it easy as you recover.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I'm Vanessa Tyler. Be sure to like and subscribe to
Blackland to catch the latest episode. A new one drops
every week.
Host
Vanessa Tyler
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