Final Expenses

Edit: 09/06/2017... 7 months and one day after the car wreck-

Hi friends, again: thank you so much for your donations. I have not posted an update in 4 months, and that is simply because I was working full time, and taking care of Lance at home... and I got lazy.

Lance had been improving SO much, especially in the last few weeks. He was going to physical therapy and getting more and more mobile every day...

I'm updating today because I was reminded that we have this site and that I had not posted any updates pretty much since he got home from Seattle.

Unfortunately... this update does not contain good news.

Early this morning Lance passed away in his sleep. The Medical Examiner believes it was a heart attack. He was only 48 years old.

His death is not related to the accident; Lance SURVIVED that accident, and the 9 hours in sub freezing temps. Lance survived all of his surgeries, and pain and physical therapy.

He passed away very peacefully although very unexpectedly. He was a wonderful father to his two boys, Noah and Max, and was the most loving, patient, tolerant and kind husband I could have ever asked for. He was my very best friend, and our 15th wedding anniversary was only 6 weeks away.

Please send prayers and thoughts, especially for his sons, our way. And thank you all again...without the donations that came it we wouldn't have made it through all of this.

I do apologize that this update is not a good one, there is no good way to notify people of things like this.

He was very beloved.

original story below: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



In the early morning hours of Sunday February 5th after his late night volunteer radio show, my 48 year old husband was driving out to North Douglas Island to photograph the aurora borealis. This was what he often did on clear winter nights after his show.


North Douglas Highway comes to an end about 11 miles out, and by "end" I do mean END. The road stops, and there is a small round gravel parking lot where hikers, hunters or fishermen/women can park their car. On the edge of this lot is a small embankment to help keep cars from rolling past the end of the road, and down the ravine located there.

About 6 years ago my husband discovered he was diabetic. Like many people, he tends to slack off on things related to medical issues because he "feels fine." Over the years he has stopped testing his blood regularly and started the terrible habit of only using insulin when he felt "funny". 

On this particular night/morning he had also not eaten. His blood sugar dropped, and he blacked out. He'd left the radio station at about midnight, so we estimate that he passed out, and hit that embankment at the end of the road at about 12:30am. The car flew through the air, then cartwheeled multiple times down the ravine, coming to a stop on its side 150 into the forest. Car parts were left in 20-30 feet up in the trees along the way. Lance's hat was even up in a tree. His eyeglasses, watch and one shoe have still not been found.

He came to at 3:00am, found his cell phone and tried to call for help. Unfortunately another aspect of a small island in Alaska is that at the end of it, down a ravine, there is no cell coverage. He tried to get out of the car but he was too badly trapped, and had serious injuries, the most life threatening one of which that his hip ball joint had come out of its socket then smashed back in and went up into his lower abdomen about 7 inches too far. He couldn’t get out, and he couldn’t call for help. He was in the middle of nowhere and it was 19 degrees Fahrenheit that night.

Although I tried to call him, at the radio station, on his cell and via facebook messenger several times between midnight and 5:00am, I am used to him going out into the wilds when the nights are clear to do his photography, so I didn’t start to seriously panic until about 4:00am.

His youngest son, who still lives at home, and I set out to look for him. His son and I even went to the end of the road to see if his car was there, but since it was down the ravine and 150 feet in, we saw no sign of anything and turned around. About 7:30am we called the Forest Service Law Enforcement, and the State Troopers and Juneau Police Department. Everyone set out to look for him.

At 9:00am a woman who had gone out hiking with her friend found him and hiked back out to get cell service, called 911, and called me.

I do have a  blog ‌ with more details as well as updates, but many people have suggested I also start a gofundme page, so here I am.

Yes, we do have health insurance, thank God! But they don’t pay 100% and they don’t cover lost wages. We got the bill from the life flight jet yesterday and it was $117,410.00 Insurance is going to pay at *least* 80% (I am hoping more)but… that’s still 20K we may need to come up with, then there is also the Trauma Unit at Seattle’s Harborview Medical Clinic, the surgeries, the stay in the Ortho-Surg room and now he is at a Long Term Care hospital, still in Seattle. At MINIMUM he will be in LTC for 3 weeks. The FMLA paperwork says *9 to 12 MONTHS* before he can walk and work again. Then of course we have rent, and utilites, and insurance, and soon Lance will not have any leave left as donations of leave hours are scarce now-a-days. Those of you who live in Juneau know how hard it is to live on one person's income. 


Although I’m asking for 40K in this campaign we are likely to need many times that amount, 40K is just what I pulled out of the air when setting this up, but the thing is it’s not that easy to ask for or accept help. But the other fact is, we need any help we can get. In the first two weeks after the accident many people DID donate to us, that's the only reason I was able to pay the tow truck to get the car out of the forest, and fly home and return to work because one of us has to be making an income. Those people helped us immediately by sending donations directly to either Lance's paypal or mine. If you send donations directly to a person via paypal "friends and family" there are no fees involved. This site does take fees, but it's worth it due to the huge audience it has. Our paypals are linked and we both have debit cards. If yu'd like to donate that way send to either shademcvay or lancemcvay both at gmail dot com.

I've also started selling my belongings, that's a rather slow process because 1) I don't own very many valuable things and 2) my clothing doesn't fit most people as I am nearly 6 feet tall and a 2X. Update 02/25/17- headed to Alaska Dames later today to put stuff on consignment.

Hopefully this nightmare and the things we’ve learned from it will help others to understand: you can NOT mess around when you have diabetes! And there are apps out there to help track people via their cellphone’s GPS. Had I known about the apps earlier he may have been found sooner and not had to have suffered in the sub-freezing temperatures for 9 hours. Click here to read more about the apps. (this link is to a personal blog that is not rated G, I apologize.)

Thank you for taking time to read our story. Stay safe.