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MN family stuck in Costa Rica back home safely

Lopez and her husband were left with two options, either wait in Costa Rica until the cast comes off in 6-8 weeks, or somehow come up with the $42,000 they need to hire a private jet.

RED WING, Minn. – A Lake City family is happy to be home after quite an ordeal in Costa Rica this week.

One day into their 2-week trip, 3-year-old Axel Lopez broke his leg and was put into a full body cast.

His mother Emmee Lopez says the cast requires Axel to lay down at all times, which doesn’t work if you’re trying to fly back home on a commercial airline.

“We couldn’t fly home,” Lopez explains. “We were stuck.”

Lopez and her husband were left with two options, either wait in Costa Rica until the cast comes off in 6-8 weeks, or somehow come up with the $42,000 they need to hire a private jet.

Neither option was going to work for them, because every day in Costa Rica was another day away from their jobs back home and the bills were stacking up.

The couple decided to go with a third option and created a GoFundMe page online.

Within a few days the page raised more than $26,000, but before the family could spend the money, a company back in Minnesota stepped in to fly them home for free.

"This is somebody who had a need that was right in our local community,” Red Wing Aeroplane President Wes Converse says.

Converse and his staff heard about the family’s story and wanted to help.

One of the company’s planes was already half way to Costa Rica, in New Orleans, so Converse decided to send it down to pick the family up.

The plane landed at the Red Wing Regional Airport late Friday night where nearly two dozen friends and family members were waiting for them.

“We just knew it was god,” Axel’s grandma Cara Grisim says. “They answered our call.

Grisim says it’s a fitting ending to their story, because her daughter, Axel’s mother, has devoted most of her life to helping others.

In 2002, Emmee Lopez, then Emmee Grisim, was the recipient of one of KARE 11’s “Eleven Who KARE” awards.

She was only 10 years old at the time, one of the youngest to ever receive the award.

Grisim says her daughter received the award for her hard work and dedication to helping the elderly in her community.

“She spent her entire life giving back and now the community is giving back to her,” Grisim says.

The family is now trying to figure out what to do with the $26,000 from their GoFundMe page.

Lopez says some of the money will go towards Axel’s medical bills.

The family also wants to give some money to the company that brought them home safely.

Any money that is left over will be given to various children’s groups in their community.

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