Celebrity friends of former TV entertainer Mark Selikoff have abandoned the bedridden US artist after promising to help him and his family following a motorcycle crash in Taoyuan County last September that left him severely brain-damaged, Selikoff's family said yesterday.
Fluent in Mandarin, Selikoff, 37, was regularly featured in variety shows such as Everyone Talks Nonsense (全民大悶鍋) and Here Come Kang and Hsi (康熙來了). His entertainment career was cut short after losing control of his motorcycle and careening into a median strip.
Selikoff was comatose in a Taoyuan hospital for two months, and, though now conscious, remains in his hospital bed, his sister Rachael Selikoff told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday.
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF SELKOFF FAMILY
"We don't know how much he understands," she said. "He can grab things and put them into a bucket."
Mentally impaired and nonverbal, Selikoff is struggling to recover while his Aboriginal wife, Huang Ying-hui (黃英惠), and their two young children fall on hard times trying to foot his medical expenses, Rachael said.
An initial outpouring of support from Selikoff's local celebrity pals, including financial pledges, has dried up even as the Taiwanese government threatens to cancel Selikoff's medical insurance policy, she added.
"There seems to be this impression out there that we're getting a ton of help from celebrities, but we're not -- we never did," she said.
Shortly after Selikoff's accident, local entertainer Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) pledged to help out with his medical expenses, while another TV entertainer, Chen Wei-min (陳為民), was reported to have rushed to the hospital to see Selikoff.
That concern has vanished, Rachael said, as Selikoff's national health insurance policy nears its expiration date in October.
Though he has resided in Taiwan for 16 years and his wife and children are Taiwanese, Selikoff isn't eligible to receive local medical insurance beyond October, Rachael said.
This is because Selikoff never applied for permanent residency and cannot obtain "handicapped status" as a severely brain-damaged foreigner.
"Mark would have to submit a certificate of health [to the government] to become eligible [for handicapped status] and he can't submit that now obviously," she said, adding that the status would provide Selikoff with a monthly stipend for his care.
"We're going to be up shit creek in October," Rachael said.
While his policy covers some expenses, Selikoff's wife has been eating through their savings to further provide care and raise their children.
The family held a fundraiser for Selikoff at a Taoyuan venue last week, but only raised NT$60,000 (US$1,800).
Donations to Selikoff can be wired to account 060500125678 at Union Bank's Jhongli branch (中壢分行). The account is in the name of his four-year-old son Shih Wei-che (石維哲).
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
RSS