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Fundraising begins for million-dollar baby couple

Nov 20, 2014 | 4:47 PM

A Manitoba woman has started an online campaign for the Humboldt couple facing almost one million dollars in medical bills.

Jennifer Huculak-Kimmel unexpectedly had her baby girl Reece nine weeks premature during a vacation in Hawaii in October 2013.

The couple had purchased medical insurance through Blue Cross but were told afterwards they would not be covered because of a pre existing condition.

After reading about the story, Lynda Dobbin-Turner from Lavenham, Man., decided to start the gofundme page.

“It really struck me,” said Dobbin-Turner who lost her son to Cerebral Palsy when he was 17. “That could’ve been so much Reece’s path with such a traumatic birth. I just thought if they can celebrate the healthy baby and not have to live with this.”

The family have said they chose to share their story to raise awareness about buying travel insurance. Dobbin-Turner kept that in mind when approaching the family about starting the fundraising effort.

“What she had said was if we went ahead and did something and something happened that it was taken care of that anything raised would go to the neo-natal intensive care unit in the Saskatoon hospital.”

Dobbin-Turner said there’s a lot of people that just want to help.

“You don’t want to see a family lose everything because of something like this or to see this little girl grow up with this hanging over her head.”

As of Thursday afternoon the account had surpassed $1,000 in donations.

bbosker@rawlco.com

On Twitter: @brentbosker