First Responder Family in Desperate Need

Cancer has taken a sudden and ominous turn for the worst. Penny, an ER charge nurse,  is the mother of two wonderful children. She lost her husband, a veteran EMT 4 years ago to sudden illness. She has days, maybe weeks. Terra and I are the godparents of these children and we will  be raising them, but we have to make drastic changes to our house as it is small and crowded.  Full story below.

     My name is Hunt Jarrell. My wife is Terra. We have been married since 1993. I worked in retail management for 18 years. We had our first son, Michael, in 1996. We had our second son, Mason, in 1998. The following year Terra decided to return to school to become a nurse. This is where she met Penny Bridges. They agreed to form a study group with them at the core and others coming and going occasionally. They became best friends and Penny actually moved in with us in the months prior to graduation so they could focus on their studies. In 2003 Penny and Terra graduated with honors and headed straight to work. Penny went into the Emergency Room, it was the only thing she ever wanted to do. Terra wanted to go into Labor and Delivery, but jobs were scarce so she went into the Cardiac Short Stay unit. Things went along smoothly, but Penny still wanted something. She wanted a family.


The Short Stay unit is for heart patients who have procedures that require less than a two day stay. As such, they have frequent interaction with first responders dropping off patients in need of care. This is where Terra met Sammy Helton. Sammy started his career as a tow truck driver, taking calls and also working at the local race track. He was a big guy, 6'4” and 300 lbs. He had rugged good looks. He rode a Harley and wore leathers. And he was a big Teddy Bear. He made countless friends through his job, drivers, track workers, police officers. It was in 1996 when he arrived at the scene of an accident involving an Alabama State Trooper, Willis Moore, that Sammy confirmed his decision to become an EMT. Terra and Sammy often talked when he would arrive with a patient, and through this she realized that he and Penny really needed to meet.

In the fall of 2006 Terra arranged for them to meet at a Huntsville Havoc hockey game and the two hit it off and began to date regularly. A year later they were living together in Penny's house, and in February of 2008 had their first child, Sam. On December 17, 2008 they were married in a small civil ceremony at the Limestone County Courthouse, with myself, Terra, and Sam attending. On March 31, 2009 they had a girl that they named Sadie. Penny's life was complete. They lived their lives in the service of others and their children, and were very happy.





In 2013 Sammy had a mini stroke. It was discovered that he had a rare blood disorder, and a mass had formed on a valve in his heart. He was prescribed medication to help fight this, and there was talk of possible valve replacement. He continued to work, but moved more into the training side of his profession, which he had been doing for some time now. Then in May of 2016 Sammy had a heart attack. He never fully recovered and died on May 14, 2016.

As an aside, at Sammy's funeral I saw an outpouring of grief and support that I have never witnessed before. Hundreds of people who's lives he had touched attended, from his speedway days to his work as a first responder, and as an instructor of future responders. Terra and I drove Penny and her children to Sammy's grave site, a distance of a little over 10 miles. The entire length of the trip the sides of the road were lined with people whom Sammy had touched, tow truck drivers, fire units, police, speedway workers. I was stunned and could barely drive through the tears at this display. Every intersection was blocked, every engine company, every police jurisdiction, including campus security from both local universities was represented. At the grave site, at the conclusion of the eulogy, a helicopter arrived and hovered as the last call was made for this man that had touched so many lives.


Penny gathered herself and her children and carried on, though the loss of the man of her dreams hurt her deeply. She slowly built a life around her children and her work, but never really recovered from her terrible loss. A pap smear came back positive during a routine health check, but Penny was stretched between work and the lives of her children and didn't follow up. She began to experience numerous health problems and was diagnosed with stage 4 cervical cancer in August 2018.

Penny underwent a grueling regimen of chemotherapy and radiation using a radical procedure that bordered on medieval torture. But she was determined to beat the cancer and live for her children, as she had essentially been abandoned as a small child and eventually was raised by her aunt. After weeks of debilitating treatments and the requisite waiting period, she was pronounced cancer free.



In February 2019 during a follow up scan, it was found that Penny's cancer had returned and metastasized. It was in her bones and in lymph nodes in several places in her body. She had surgery to place a rod in her femur to keep it from shattering, and underwent chemotherapy and radiation again to try and combat the cancer. She was then placed on a new drug that had shown promise in slowing and reducing the spread of the cancer. It didn't work. It was recommended that she try to get accepted into several different trial programs, but she didn't qualify because of the extent of the treatments she had already received. She had to leave the job she loved and is now on disability.

And now we have reached the final stage. Penny's health has been rapidly deteriorating, and the cancer is taking over. She still tries to remain positive, and her biggest worry is for her children. Penny's mom, Ginger Day drove straight down from her home in North Carolina and has been tending to Penny's and the kids' needs. She is a strong woman and has been very influential in the children's lives and we are blessed to have her around.


Sam is a great kid. He looks like his mom (we call him mini-Penny) but inherited his dads physique. At 12 he is already 6' tall and weighs 300 pounds. Doctors project he will be at minimum 6'5, but I think more like 6'7-6'10 the way he is growing. He enjoys science and video games and is in the gifted program at school. He is very smart and funny, and is also very empathetic, the loss of his dad was hard on him, the loss of his mom will be devastating. I try to fill in on dad things with him. He's a Boy Scout, so we go on camp outs and canoe trips and other outings that Penny can't manage. We built a birdhouse for 4H, and a couple of winning Pinewood Derby race cars. That's fallen off a little lately as he knows what is happening and wants to spend as much time with his mom as possible.


Sadie is a double handful. So curious, not terribly shy. She loves to do things with her hands, and she has boundless energy. After Sammy's death her schoolwork began to fall off. It was thought to be an ADHD thing at first, but further study found that she had virtually lost hearing in one of her ears and that her visual range had gone from normal to about the width of an egg. She went through a treatment called Snider Therapy for about a year. She is now recovered, but still deserves constant attention and a secure environment.



Terra and I are Sam and Sadie's godparents. We will be taking them into our home to help them heal and grow when the time comes. They are fully aware of everything that is going on and we have spent vacations and holidays together since they were born.


I worked for Foot Locker for 16 years, having come from another brand to manage and oversee several stores. When Terra became secure in her nursing job we decided that I would leave and go back to school. Life had other plans. Her mom had a stroke and had to come live with us. I took care of her and the rest of the family for the next 8 years, until she developed cancer, and sadly passed away.

Terra is the dynamo in this story. She now works in the Cardiac Catheterization Lab at Huntsville Hospital. She just received her RCIS certification and is 3 weeks away from graduating from the BSN program at Purdue Worldwide. All of this while dealing with her father, who just finished chemotherapy for esophageal cancer, and her best friend, who is dying.

Our sons both still live with us. I know they'll leave soon, but I enjoy their company. They are good young men. Michael is an EP tech at Huntsville Hospital, and Mason is a merchandiser at Academy Sports. We live in a modest 3 bedroom house. As you can see, we're going to need a bigger boat.

Luckily we have a full unfinished 1200 sq. ft basement. My plan was to start in November getting all of this in order for the inevitable. Then I became ill. Daily fevers of 100-102, loss of appetite, night sweats. With it being the end of the year and the holiday season I wasn't able to get a CT, and then subsequent biopsy and diagnosis until January. I lost 20 pounds. The diagnosis turned out to be histoplasmosis, a fungal lung infection that can be treated with pills. The process hasn't gone smoothly, I developed a bacterial pneumonia and overcame that (after having been tested negative for Covid19), then started getting better until recently when they changed my medication to see if that helped my loss of appetite. It didn't and the 102 fever came back with the night sweats. I have never felt more useless. I'm usually the fixer, I fix things. I'm at a loss.

Wednesday April 8, 2020 Penny went to the emergency room. She's been on hospice, but she was at her limit. A CT scan revealed that the cancer had invaded practically her entire body. She has weeks left, if not days. They sent her home on morphine.

My plan is to get my basement professionally sealed. Install an HVAC unit and an electrical box. The basement is plumbed for a bathroom, but not finished in any way (my fingers are crossed that my septic system is large enough to handle the additional load, it's close, and that expense would be horrendous), I will probably put in plumbing for a washer and dryer in the basement in addition to the upstairs laundry to accommodate the extra load. Two bedrooms, a window will have to be cut into the cinder block wall to comply with egress codes. And then an open area for the kids to be kids and for their friends to be kids. I planned to do it all myself. Now I can't.

I need your help. $1 dollar from 50,000 people, or whatever you can do to help. If there are any excess funds, they will be put into an account for the education and upkeep of the children.


PS. I will continuously update this site and post photos, I'm not sure how all of this works, I'm flying blind here.