Get Ryan Contreras-Betz back on the road to recovery

Hello everyone. This is Ryan Contreras Betz. He is many things. An aspiring sports broadcaster, a baseball player, and my best friend. This spring, all of his activities were halted, as he was shockingly diagnosed with a rare aggressive cancer that only affects 20 Americans a year, called a Desmoplastic small-round-cell tumor.

Ryan would spent some of his time at Lurie’s Children’s Hospital getting chemotherapy treatment, and was on pace to have the tumor in his stomach removed by early September. All was going well. He was on pace to be back to normal activity in November, although still needing regular checkups for the tumor.

On the way back from my house where he said his last goodbye before being sidelined from surgery for at least 2 months, he was about to meet another one of his friends for last time in a while. He was beginning to enter the left turn lane on Rand-Euclid intersection when a reckless driver in a Dodge Challenger started to rev up his engine on the other side, and hit him head on going at an illegal speed limit (it was believed to be 90 MPH).

Ryan miraculously survived the crash. As if the aggressive cancer wasn't enough, he is now learning how to walk again with a broken femur and dislocated toes. Ryan’s surgery has been pushed back at least a month, and now he has no car to transport in considering his Hyundai was totaled at the scene of the collision.

This tragedy on top of the cancer has forced them to take time off of work to spend more time with him. The point of this fundraiser is to show the power of our community by helping him afford a new car when he can get back on the road once again and also fund the Betz family for anything else that they need.

Ryan is an incredible person and loves to help people in need. Now, it is our turn to show him our love. Thank you for reading this and we hope you consider helping this young man out.

-Luke Jorden