STRANDED Vaughan Matthews should be celebrating his 47th birthday at home in Gloucester today.
Instead he and his girlfriend Jo Baldwin are trapped in Morocco after he suffered a heart attack while on holiday there.
Vaughan, a helicopter engineer from Abbeydale, saw travel insurers Santander stall on paying out the £25,000 needed to get him back home by air ambulance, but it looks like there might be light at the end of the tunnel.
It is now looking like an air ambulance will get the pair home on Friday if all goes to plan.
Jo, 40, is by Vaughan's bedside in a Moroccan hospital.
She said: "We are just stuck out here. We don't know what to do and we don't have any answers.
"Vaughan is stable but he's not well and the doctors say he needs to go back into hospital.
"He has three kids and I have four and they are all worried sick for us. Both of our families just want us to come home.
"He has never taken a day off work in his life and when we need help, we have been left stranded."
Miss Baldwin's worried step-dad Pete Barnes, of Reservoir Road in Abbeydale, says he just wants the pair home for the sake of Jo's 12-year-old daughter Emma, who he had been looking after for the week.
Mr Barnes said: "They flew out last Tuesday and that night Vaughan had a heart attack. He's spent the whole holiday in hospital and they should have been back by now. Jo has been texting Emma but we just want them back home now.
"I don't know what she has told Emma but she has handled it very well.
"When we asked her how she was feeling, she seemed more concerned about her library books, but I'm sure Jo doesn't want to worry her about it all."
The couple's dream holiday had been due to start on Tuesday, November 13 when they flew out.
But later that evening Mr Matthews, who is a keen cyclist, collapsed.
No one from Santander was available to comment at the time of going to press.