Please help us help our hero, Steve.

Hi everyone,

My name is Dustin Blanchard. At around 12:30pm on August 12th, 2022 my Dad, Steve was involved in an accident that has changed the course of his life from now on. He is self employed and due to this accident, he will be out of work for a very long time with no other way to pay bills while he's in recovery.

Steve is a truck driver, the hardest working man that I've ever known and the absolute best father, husband, brother, friend and human being that there can possibly be. Today, he was loading a regular load of post that he has done countless times. Unfortunately, as he was strapping down this specific section of posts, something went wrong and they fell off of the trailer, hit and crushed him which resulted in him being thrown under the trailer where he was found laying shortly after.

The accident resulted in the following injuries:

- Shattered femur in 4 places down near his knee.

- Compound fracture breaking both his fibula and tibia above his right ankle. The bone was sticking through his skin.

- Fractured C7 vertebrae with 2 other possible fractures that haven't been identified as of the time that I post this.

- 2 fractured ribs on his right side.

- Injury to the top of his head which we assume was him hitting the edge of the trailer on the way down.

Those are the prominent injuries but he may have sustained more that have not been discovered yet.

My Dad is the toughest man that I've ever known and somehow, someway he was fortunate enough to not suffer any major injuries to his vital organs and he was stable, conscious and communicating with emergency personnel and family. Our family and myself are beyond grateful for the quickness and kindness of every emergency personnel that was involved in transporting him safely from the accident site to our local hospital. They all did an absolutely amazing job and they saved him. To the EMTs, nurses, physicians and doctors in Plains, thank you for stabilizing Dad and providing him comfort until he was able to be transported to St. Patrick's hospital in Missoula where he is currently being taken care of. I will continuously update this as we receive news but as of right now he has had successful surgery on both of his legs and will be in the ICU for a couple days and will start rehab shortly after! Huge thank you to the amazing team at St. Patrick's as well for being professional, courteous, kind and caring. They made my Dad and our family feel safe and secure during this absolutely insane and whirlwind of a day!

My family and I will be taking care of Dad during recovery and will make sure he has the smoothest recovery possible. I'm making this post with the hopes that we can share this and help relieve as much of the financial side of things from the upcoming medical bills as we possibly can as our family insurance will only help with a small amount of the expenses. Steve has been a workhorse his whole life and has always been there for anybody that's ever needed him for anything without batting an eye or without ever asking for anything in return and we want to return that favor and go above and beyond for my Dad in every way possible.

If anyone out there is able to share this or make any type of donation, we would all be immensely grateful and beyond thankful! We've never been the kind of family to ask for help, but my Dad is my hero and we want to do everything we can to make him feel safe and secure throughout his long road to recovery.

Thank you to anyone who takes the time out of their day to read this. We appreciate all of the support that we've received already and we couldn't be more grateful for the kindness that has been shown to my Dad and our family at this time!