To help Tim with his recovery

Hi, my name is Katrina and one of my best friends is the beautiful Nicole. I would actually say she is more like family. She has also always treated my kids like family. She is just special and would do anything to help others.

Every Saturday we go walking (she drives over 40mins to get here) and then she goes cleaning in her 2nd job after we catch up. Well Nicole contacted me yesterday, to say she won’t be able to go for the walk this week, because her partner Tim had been in an accident at work. He was working on a boat when the engine exploded, and the boat caught fire. Tim was actually stuck in the boat for a period of time after the explosion and has suffered 3rd degree burns to his arms and legs (and will require skin grafts). But his hand has been shattered as well. I won’t get into some of the detail Nicole told me about his injuries, as I am not sure everyone would want to read that. But it isn’t good, and Tim has a very long and very painful recovery ahead of him.

What makes the story even sadder than it already is Nicole and Tim work harder than anyone I know. They don’t ask for help or handouts and they just get it done. For as long as I have known them, they have each been working 2 jobs to get by. Sometimes working the equivalent of at least 2 x full jobs per week. Even getting up at 1am to get ready for 1 job, to then have to go straight to the next during business hours. But Tim was working his LAST day in that job and was due to start an exciting new opportunity next week, that was going to go a long way to finally getting them ahead. It was going to take some pressure off, just like they deserve. Now he is obviously in no state to start that job and they don’t even know how long his recovery will be. But he will probably never be the same again.

Nicole & Tim also have 3 beautiful daughters (the girls are actually from a previous marriage and that is a whole other story there, about the amazing woman and mother that Nicole is. But Tim has taken them on as his own and is an amazing father). To be able to get into the housing market, they recently purchased a property with acreage up around west of Gympie. Which in itself was a drama and the house was left an absolute disgrace for them to clean up. With the extra space and land, they have been rescuing and taking on animals to save them and take care of them. But they now live even further away and have been driving down this way for work each day.

With Tims new injuries being so bad, he had to get transported to Brisbane to be treated. So Nicole has even further to travel to visit him. She can’t even bring the girls down closer to stay, as they also have many animals to take care of.

Their current dilemma on top of his obvious physical injuries are…

• Tim isn’t going to be able to work at all, for a LONG period of time. He could be in hospital for months & months having surgeries/skin grafts etc. But he is still going to need to recover beyond that. Plus his hand that is shattered, will he ever be in a position to do another hands-on job like he has always done.

• Tim then can’t do the other cleaning work that they both do. Nicole must take it on all by herself, but how does she do that, when she needs to drive more to see Tim and have less time. But she has kids to take care of as well, and the animals, and a house.

• We are hoping Workcover will at some point cover the wage for that job for him. But when will that kick in? It won’t cover the extra work that he was doing. No matter how they do it, they are going to be down on income that they were on, and they were already doing it tough and just getting by.

I’m probably a bit of a control freak and I hate that I can’t fix the problem. I hate that I can’t take their physical and emotional pain away. But what if lots of us donated a little, and we could just take a bit of pressure off them. Where their main stress was Tim getting better. Not added stress of things like, will they be able to pay for petrol, or food. Or pay for the mortgage or bills. I also think this would make it easier for Tim to stay focused and positive with his recovery and hopefully get better quicker. Tim is a bloody tough amazing man, and based on how the whole story went down with the explosion and getting stuck. I would say that is the only reason why he is still alive. But people do get tired of fighting too and being strong. I think he would be even stronger if he knew others were backing him. I’m sure he would even love if people couldn’t afford to help financially, but if they dropped a positive note instead.

Seriously, if you have even the littlest amount to give, or just some lovely comment, please do. It would mean so much to me, but also to this amazingly beautiful family. Thanks heaps for reading!!