Support Mark Shafer's Road to Recovery

Mark Shafer was involved in a motorcycle accident north of the airport in fargo, ND on Saturday July 27th when he collided with a tractor turning left in front of him. He underwent reconstructive surgery on his leg. His injuries were severe to his right leg, he has a fractured shoulder blade, a broken right hand, internal bleeding, broken ribs, is intubated, and has a chest tube in place to drain fluid out of his chest. He has many months to years of reoccurring surgeries physical therapy infront of him and will not be able to work his concrete construction job. His family and I have decided to create this go fund me to help cover his medical bills and other bills and expenses as his employer medical insurance has not been in effect yet and will be out of work for months. Please keep Mark in your prayers.

#Shaferstrong stickers are being made and sold for 10$ a piece

UPDATES:

Because of the large amount of debris the most they were able to do on his first surgery was an extensive clean out and place an external fixation rod throughout his right leg, He was placed in a medically induced coma to allow him to heal better and give the medical staff the ability to work on him.

Sunday, they pulled him out of the induced coma to check his neurological function and see if he is responsive to simple commands. They asked him to give thumbs up with his left and right hand, which he did! They also asked him to move his left toes and he did and then before being asked he was wiggling his right toes, which was our first yeehaw moment, because we were not expecting him to be able to do this with all the damage to that leg! He went through another surgery on Monday where we had initially thought the were going to do another clean out of the right leg and begin working to fix both the femur and tibia, however they only did another clean out and then placed another stabilizing rod on his leg. They were able to fix his broken pinky, that was broken in 4 places. That clean out was also very extensive due to all the grass in the wound and paint on his bones. There was talk about a possible amputation to the pinky finger because of the damage to the muscles and ligaments he may never have mobility of that pinky again. But now that he’s awake and can make an informed decision on it mark has chosen against the amputation.

On Wednesday July 30th at 1:40pm he was finally able to pass the breathing test and get his endotracheal tube removed getting him finally off the ventilator. Probably one of the hardest parts was him wanting to know what was going on and him not being able to communicate. He still is very foggy as to remembering what happened or how he got here.

Thursday they started some physical therapy trying to get him to sit on his own on the edge of the bed. Which he did great at, now we work on standing on the one good leg next. Once he can do that they can teach him how to walk without pressure on the right leg and he will be able to get out of his hospital bed.

Friday was another very busy day for him, they took him back for his 3rd surgery very early. Which he came through amazingly. They fixed the femur and tibia with rods and pins. They were able to salvage a good portion of his kneecap too. Because the tibia was missing fractions of the bone they put antibiotic infused bone concrete as a spacer to help his body grow tissue in the right spots so they can go back in in about a month and add a bone graft in those spaces.

They will have a team take a look at the shoulder blade next week and decide if that will need surgery or not as well. But for the most part he is done with surgeries for now. His chest tube accidentally got ripped out when taking him off the OR table, so they had to monitor him for a bit but he did well without it so chest tube is gone!

We greatly appreciate all the support he has been getting and the prayers. Thank you all.