Jeff Bezos may be one of the richest men in the world, pulling in $25 billion being only 49 years old but over his trip to the Galapagos, his fortune and life were threatened.
The Amazon founder suffered a kidney stone attack onboard a luxurious cruise ship, which was traveling in between the islands of Santa Cruz and Floreana on New Year's Day. When asked for a response by Reuters, he replied in an email, "Galapagos: five stars. Kidney stones: zero stars."
He was met by a navy helicopter on the island of Santa Cruz before being airlifted to Baltra Island for him to board his private jet straight to the United States where he had to undergo "emergency surgery", as reported by the Ecuadorian Navy.
"We landed our helicopter on a football pitch there ... they told us that a doctor had already gone in boat to treat him onboard the yacht ... They stabilized him and took him to the United States. He was conscious, but he was on a drip," quips Juan Carlos Ibarra, the lieutenant of the navy force reported, who also happened to be the pilot of the helicopter that airlifted Bezos.
The lieutenant goes on to continue that the Amazon multi-billionaire founder said that he had to be attended to at the shortest amount of time possible, which is why the navy was hasty to make the rescue once they heard that the ship will make an emergency stop in Academy Bay, Santa Cruz Island. The Galapagos is about 600 meters off the coast of Ecuador proper.
Ibarra, along with his co-pilots and flight engineer reportedly received many messages of gratitude from the co-workers, friends and relatives of Bezos, saying that he was a "prestigious, world famous businessman".
Only 49, Bezos started his billion-dollar industry as a garage project, an online bookselling platform that hastily became the world's largest retailing industry. Apart from that, he has catapulted the Amazon Kindle to technological fame as well as "cloud", a known internet-based computation device.
Just last year, he surprised everyone by buying the Washington Post for $250 million.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
