Emergency Medical Expenses For Greg Danforth

Medical and Recovery Expenses for Greg Danforth

On Friday January 27, 2023 Greg was involved in a horrific accident resulting in multiple extensive injuries. Greg is an OTR and long haul truck driver, and the accident happened out of state. He is currently in the Erlanger Trauma Center in Chattanooga, TN. He will be here at least until he is able to be transported to a hospital closer to home, if that even becomes an option. His wife Kristen is a school nurse with Decatur City Schools and will be off work as much as she can, and traveling back and forth daily when she has to. Traveling back and forth is exhaustive and expensive, but so are hotels in the Chattanooga area.

The immediate financial needs are to help Kristen travel and stay close by while Greg is in the ICU and can’t have overnight guests in the room. She will have food, lodging, and gas expenses. And will need to keep the bills at home paid while she and Greg are both off work for an indefinite amount of time. Farther down the road, the financial needs will expand to include missing income for them both during the recovery. And then the extreme medical bills associated with a medflight airlift, emergency surgery, Trauma ICU stay, and then whatever comes next after this leg of the journey.

Medically speaking, Greg is doing remarkable things today (day 2). Greg was intubated on scene and airlifted to Erlanger. Upon arrival yesterday he had two collapsed lungs, multiple broken ribs, fractures in the thoracic spine, ruptured spleen, lacerated liver, lacerated kidney, lacerated small bowel and stomach, extreme loss of blood, multiple contusions and a host of other injuries that are insignificant in comparison to these major ones.

In surgery, they removed the spleen and right kidney, repaired the small bowel, stomach, and liver, inserted chest tubes to drain blood and reinflate the lungs. He remained intubated and sedated overnight last night and was able to come off the vent this morning. He is breathing on his own, recognized Kristen when she came in, and responded to verbal cues to wiggle his toes. Then next few days will paint a clearer picture of the road that lies ahead.