Zoe's Bills & Recovery

Hello, my name is Abel Clark and I've been asked to create this site to get some financial help from anyone touched enough by our story to contribute.

An 18 year old, mentally ill driver decided to try and end his life this last Saturday by running into my family. He was uninsured, and not financially stable enough to help with this. My wife, my 3 children, and I were driving back to our hotel room for the night, when the driver of that vehicle was speeding in the other direction. A cop that was in front of us about 100yds had flipped on his lights and flipped around to go after the speeder. That is when the teenager decided that it was better to end it than to deal with a speeding ticket and turned his vehicle directly toward us and stepped on the gas.

We were on a short trip, checking out Canyonlands near Moab, Utah, and then drove a little further to check out Cortez, CO. It seemed like a cute town that we might want to move to, so we rented a hotel room at a cute little Retro Inn hotel, and decided to check out the town for the night. Didn't even get to sleep that night before the teenage driver tried to end himself through us.

I tried to pull to the right side of the road and avoid him, but he turned his vehicle toward us and continued to speed up until he rammed into us. I was driving, and my daughter Zoe was in the back seat behind me. She got the worst part of the impact and wound up with multiple internal lacerations to her spleen, kidney, and liver - she required multiple blood transfusions to make up for the lost blood. The impact broke 3 of her ribs and her pelvis, and collapsed one of her lungs. She was knocked out cold, and for a few seconds we thought she was dead. She was completely unresponsive, but eventually started gargling and making moaning noises, so we knew at least she was alive. We found out that she had a major concussion and a brain bleed, and they thought they would need to do brain surgery at the very least.

Long story short, she wound up getting life-lighted to a specialty hospital in Colorado Springs, because sending her back to Utah required too much red tape. She has been in the ICU there since last Saturday night. She has been slowly recovering, but seems to be mostly out of the woods now. She still requires a breathing tube, and one of her lungs is still only functioning at about 50%. She caught both pneumonia and mono while in the hospital, but she has been a real trooper and has been fighting through the pain of having to cough out the extra fluid in her lungs via the breathing tube.

We have been fortunate to have good friends and family praying for us, and we are certain she will make a full recovery, but there will be a long road of hard work ahead for her of healing and physical therapy.

The rest of us weren't too badly hurt. A bunch of bumps, bruises, and misplaced discs. The real issue we have is that the driver wasn't insured, and while we have uninsured motorist coverage, it won't cover many of the expenses that we will be facing with this accident. We bought the vehicle that was totaled less than a year ago, and will owe money on it after the insurance check. We don't know exactly how much yet. We will also need to pay for all of the extra medical bills and recovery therapy for Zoe - including the hospital room time that costs a LOT and paying off our old vehicle - then trying to get a new vehicle with no down payment. Ugh.

Don't get me wrong, it could have been much worse. I am so grateful that my family is all alive! I also pray for the family of that teenage boy who tried to take us all out. He is in jail now, facing some heavy charges. He was not drunk or impaired when he did this terrible thing, so they have placed some serious charges against him. I just hope and pray he gets the mental help he needs, and that he will get another, better chance at life again one day soon.

I don't like having to ask for this help, but I really need it for my family at this time. If everyone can spare just a few dollars to pitch in and help, we would be ever so grateful! God bless you all, and I pray that something like this never happens to you or someone you love! Thank you!

Sincerely,

The Clark Family

Abel, Tiffany, Skyla, Zoe, and Ethan.