Battle for Brett Barnes
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Brett is a retired Marine, Gunnery Sergeant, who spent more than half his life serving the United States, he has taken many, many tours in his life and has traveled the world. After he retired, he couldn’t stay away from traveling for very long and ended up working with a security team all over the world. If you ask Brett if he likes to travel he will tell you no, but as his family we can tell you, he loves his work, he loves to travel, meet and help others and even risk his own life. Brett, above anything else, puts his wife, kids and his whole extended family first by supporting us: physically, mentally, financially and emotionally. He has missed some family events throughout his life but with him fighting to save lives overseas, we all respect the sacrifices he’s made and the work he does. Now, we are turning to our friends and family to support him while he fights for his life.
Brett has been in the hospital since March 1st, 2019 having gone in for, what we thought, was just the flu. He was checked into Marcus Daly in Hamilton for a little over 24 hours before he was transported by ambulance to Saint Patrick’s in Missoula for a severe case of pneumonia. He had around the clock care and was checked into the ICU, intensive care unit, believing he had inhaled something dangerous while in his travels overseas. He wasn’t in Saint Patrick’s Hospital for long before his lungs began to fail and they immediately had to drug induce him into a coma and put him on life support. They paralyzed his body so he couldn’t move and we had a few days following the drug induced coma we weren’t sure he was going to make it. Brett was in a coma for roughly a week before the doctors and nurses began to pull him out of the heavy sedation and took away the paralytic. Watching him come out of something like that was incredibly scary, he was very, very sick still and you could tell there was a lot of confusion there. I can’t imagine what he was going through in those few days, I could only say that it was probably an incredibly terrifying moment. It’s been extremely hard to watch this pillar of a man fight for his life.
When he finally came off the paralytic he began to be a little more aware, unable to communicate and too weak to move, we relied on facial expressions to ‘speak’ with him. He had one really good day and we thought he was on the mend! I can’t begin to tell you how excited we were and our hopes were incredibly high! Those were crushed later that night when he began to crash hard, his temperature increased, blood pressure rose and heart rate quickened. Everything was much higher than we had seen them since he had been checked into the hospital initially. It was crushing and heartbreaking to see him have an amazing day, only to be sedated heavily once more.
At this point, there was no more communicating with him, he was too sick to be moved and we were feeling almost hopeless at this point. We finally asked our doctors to call around and see if there was another bigger hospital that had room for him, that had the ability to transport him in his critical state. We finally were able to gather a transport team from Salt Lake City and have them arrive with an ECMO machine to safely transport him without endangering his life. An ECMO machine is basically a piece of equipment that draws out the blood, oxygenates it and filters it back into the body; an external lung so to speak. The doctors said he was a great candidate for it and again we felt our hopes rising little by little.
On Monday, March 18th, Brett was transported safely to the University of Utah and stabilized in the ICU here. The doctors are projecting he will be here anywhere between 2 and 8 weeks, perhaps longer depending on how much he improves. These first few days are critical, even if he’s a good candidate for the ECMO machine, he still has to accept it and as he is coming out of sedation we need to make sure he understands that this piece of equipment is what is supporting his life. This is where we are at right now with his care and we are hoping we can communicate and speak with him by the end of the week.
That being said, expenses are extremely high right now, medical deductions will be rolling out soon and his wife, Becky, will be staying in Salt Lake City until further notice. We are asking for donations of any kind to help with expenses and if you are unable to donate, please, please give this a share! Brett is an amazing father, son, husband and family man. We want to support him in every way we can! Thank you so much for taking the time to read and for sharing and donating, everyone has been truly gracious! Thank you!!!
Brett has been in the hospital since March 1st, 2019 having gone in for, what we thought, was just the flu. He was checked into Marcus Daly in Hamilton for a little over 24 hours before he was transported by ambulance to Saint Patrick’s in Missoula for a severe case of pneumonia. He had around the clock care and was checked into the ICU, intensive care unit, believing he had inhaled something dangerous while in his travels overseas. He wasn’t in Saint Patrick’s Hospital for long before his lungs began to fail and they immediately had to drug induce him into a coma and put him on life support. They paralyzed his body so he couldn’t move and we had a few days following the drug induced coma we weren’t sure he was going to make it. Brett was in a coma for roughly a week before the doctors and nurses began to pull him out of the heavy sedation and took away the paralytic. Watching him come out of something like that was incredibly scary, he was very, very sick still and you could tell there was a lot of confusion there. I can’t imagine what he was going through in those few days, I could only say that it was probably an incredibly terrifying moment. It’s been extremely hard to watch this pillar of a man fight for his life.
When he finally came off the paralytic he began to be a little more aware, unable to communicate and too weak to move, we relied on facial expressions to ‘speak’ with him. He had one really good day and we thought he was on the mend! I can’t begin to tell you how excited we were and our hopes were incredibly high! Those were crushed later that night when he began to crash hard, his temperature increased, blood pressure rose and heart rate quickened. Everything was much higher than we had seen them since he had been checked into the hospital initially. It was crushing and heartbreaking to see him have an amazing day, only to be sedated heavily once more.
At this point, there was no more communicating with him, he was too sick to be moved and we were feeling almost hopeless at this point. We finally asked our doctors to call around and see if there was another bigger hospital that had room for him, that had the ability to transport him in his critical state. We finally were able to gather a transport team from Salt Lake City and have them arrive with an ECMO machine to safely transport him without endangering his life. An ECMO machine is basically a piece of equipment that draws out the blood, oxygenates it and filters it back into the body; an external lung so to speak. The doctors said he was a great candidate for it and again we felt our hopes rising little by little.
On Monday, March 18th, Brett was transported safely to the University of Utah and stabilized in the ICU here. The doctors are projecting he will be here anywhere between 2 and 8 weeks, perhaps longer depending on how much he improves. These first few days are critical, even if he’s a good candidate for the ECMO machine, he still has to accept it and as he is coming out of sedation we need to make sure he understands that this piece of equipment is what is supporting his life. This is where we are at right now with his care and we are hoping we can communicate and speak with him by the end of the week.
That being said, expenses are extremely high right now, medical deductions will be rolling out soon and his wife, Becky, will be staying in Salt Lake City until further notice. We are asking for donations of any kind to help with expenses and if you are unable to donate, please, please give this a share! Brett is an amazing father, son, husband and family man. We want to support him in every way we can! Thank you so much for taking the time to read and for sharing and donating, everyone has been truly gracious! Thank you!!!
Fundraising team (2)
Katie Barnes
Organizer
Missoula, MT
Becky Barnes
Beneficiary
Billy Barnes
Team member