A POOLE granddad has been left fighting for his life after he was attacked in Thailand.

Nigel Holmes, 66, had been visiting his girlfriend in the city of Pattaya for a number of weeks when he was rushed to hospital with a internal bleeding of the brain.

According to Nigel's daughter Amanda Hunt, 37, the circumstances behind what caused the bleed are still unconfirmed, but it is believed he was attacked.

"We really have no idea what happened to him and with the language barriers between us and the officials in Thailand I'm not sure if we will ever get to the bottom of it," said Amanda, who has two children.

"They think that maybe he could have been unconscious for two days before he was found by anyone.

"The first we heard about it was when his girlfriend called us about a week ago on Thursday, February 4 to say he was in hospital in quite a serious condition."

Despite his serious condition Nigel was only in hospital three days before he was deemed fit enough to be released.

But just a few days later he was rushed to another hospital in the area when his health began to quickly deteriorate.

"My older sister Katy is a nurse at Dorset County Hospital. So we had the hospital in Thailand send over the brain scans to her so her colleague could take a look and they advised her that he should not be out of the hospital as he can still develop a blood clot in the brain," added Amanda.

"We began to get really worried when we spoke to dad on the phone and couldn't get much sense out of him.

"So we contacted a friend who is in Thailand on holiday. He visited our dad and was straight away concerned that he should be at hospital because he was suffering with a lot of pain and severely dehydrated as well as being very confused and not knowing who people are."

At the second hospital it was discovered that Nigel, who had four grandchildren, needed brain surgery to relieve the pressure after a second scan showed more bleeding.

On Friday morning UK time Nigel had the surgery and is believed to be in a stable condition in hospital.

"The problem is we don't know how long it's going to be until he will be fit enough to leave the hospital and travel back home," added Amanda.

"There isn't an NHS in Thailand and dad's insurance only covers £1,400 - the surgery alone was £10,000 and a day in hospital costs about £600.

"It's getting very expensive and we don't even know how long this could go on for."

Amanda, along with sisters Katy and Joanna and brother Andy have managed to pull together the £4,000 deposit for the surgery.

But Joanna, 22, who doesn't have a lot of money to spare, came up with the idea to start a fundraising page which has already raised £3,450.

"The support has been really overwhelming and we can't thank people enough for their help," she added.

"Our dad is a lovely gentle man who is adored by his grandchildren. We just want to bring him home."