A Florida college student who suffered a car crash in Cuba and was stranded when she could not afford an air-ambulance flight will be able to return home thanks to the generosity of a Tampa-based company, NBC Miami reported.

Barbara Jimenez had traveled to the island along with her boyfriend, John Fox, earlier this month, and the two were seriously injured in an accident on the island, the Miami Herald recalled. Traveling to San Jose, a town about 40 minutes away from Havana, their taxi, a 1952 Chevrolet, was hit by a truck, and the driver died at the scene.

Jimenez and Fox were taken to local hospitals, and Fox, an engineer in Melbourne, Florida, was later airlifted to Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital. But Jimenez does not have health insurance and was not able to pay for an air-ambulance flight, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars, out of pocket.

Stranded in the Cuban capital, Jimenez could do little else than wait for her parents, Daisy Falcon and Jorge Jimenez, who immediately traveled to Cuba to be with their daughter. Her sister, Caridad Jimenez, soon after also made the trip. 

"She gets out of breath because she had a tracheotomy," Caridad noted as she tried to explain her sister's state. "She's so weak that she can't get up on her own. She gets so frustrated."

Finding Barbara at the Cuban hospital was "probably the most horrible thing I've ever had to see in my life," Caridad told NBC Miami.

"Just seeing my baby sister, who is normally full of so much energy, energetic, seeing her lifeless body on this bed. She was pretty much was in a coma for four or five days," she said.

As the story made national headlines, a Florida air-ambulance transport company agreed to fly Jimenez back to Florida without charge, and the young woman could arrive in the United States as early as Friday. The attention has also helped her family raise more than $15,000 through a GoFundMe page.