Andy Acker’s Recovery

While in the passenger seat en route to a funeral in Iowa on August 17th, Andy Acker was injured in a crash in rural Nebraska that spun the car into the interstate median, where his side of the vehicle t-boned into the beginning of a guardrail at high speed.

Extraordinarily lucky to survive, the impact left him with five broken ribs and four more ribs fractured in multiple places, a punctured lung, and pursuant damage to his right shoulder. Now starts his journey on the long road of recovery. 

Andy is a Zen Priest who leads a meditation group at Stanford University where his students learn to develop the skills they need to approach their education and life work with reduced stress while cultivating compassion to bring their talents into the world in a way that benefits others. Since much of one’s work as a priest is offered freely, Andy supplements his income as an officiant and a DJ for a variety of events. Andy’s life work is about creating experiences that give our own lives meaning and depth. Andy has a way of working with people spontaneously in the moment to help the heart to unfold, and this shows up in each of these endeavors. 

While there is some insurance to help cover the hospital bills, the accident has left him unable to work for many months. A regimen of pain management, physical therapies, acupuncture, at-home care costs, and a variety of unexpected expenses will need to be covered. With 9 of his 12 ribs on the right side broken or fractured, Andy’s range of motion is now extremely limited. This requires precise strategic movements to perform even the most basic routine activities such as sitting-up from bed, standing, brushing our teeth, bathing, and eating. Like the practice of kinhin (walking meditation), each step is taken with great care. 

With a few modifications to his physical environment, we can help Andy heal over the next 100 days, and minimize his struggles to do the simple things that we all take for granted. After the ribs mend and heal, his road to health will also include manual and physical therapy to restore his body to full functionality, health, and wellness. Most of all, we would like to bring Andy home from Minnesota, where he has begun his healing, and back to California. He has been medically advised to allow time to heal his lung and some of his ribs first, before braving the skies of airline travel. 

We deeply appreciate your support for Andy in any way that you are able to offer it. Donations of any size can make a huge impact on Andy’s recovery. In a time like this, your words of encouragement are a shining light. Andy’s path has suddenly turned towards a deep listening of bodily healing and a fresh perspective on human life. This experience has caused Andy to find a well of gratitude and deeper meaning within Zen practice. The simple act of breathing softly through the belly goes a long way toward easing the pressure on his ribs. Most of all, Andy finds peace in this trauma by turning conversations to focus on the needs of others, which he says is always more uplifting than thinking about what his thorax is saying. 

We invite you to help us bring him home, heal his wounds, and bring him back into the world better than before. Andy has written his account of what happened in a Facebook post that we will share in an update. 

As we learn more about insurance coverage, we may adjust the fundraiser accordingly. We thank you for your support for the people we share this world with.