Arkansas Firefighter Injured
Donation protected
Hello Everyone,
My name is Ashley Bowmaster, and I am the wife of Jason Bowmaster who is now medically retired from Jacksonville Fire Department after 14 years of service. On March 19, 2012 around 10:45PM, my husband and his Captain responded to a single vehicle accident that hit a gas main on Hwy 161 at the 8400 block. The woman of that vehicle was fine, but the gas main still needed to be shut off. Unfortunately, Engine 4 did not have the proper fitting to shut the gas main off. My husband, his Captain, and a police officer were standing off to the side of the road in a drive way with their reflective vests on waiting for the gas company to come and shut off the gas main, meanwhile the woman that was in the accident called her son Bryce Allen to come and pick her up. Bryce Allen showed up in a tan mini van, and without haulting, accelerated and hit my husband, his captain, and a police officer. Captain Donald Jones was killed instantly. My husband and the police officer was severly injured. My husband sustained the following injuries...his femur was broken in 3 places, he had 5 broke ribs, a partial collapsed lung which ended in a fully collapsed lung, his pelvis was broken in half, his clavicle was broke, he bruised his spleen, he had lacerations to his face and hands, he sustained blunt head force trauma, which has effected his speech and left him with frontal lobe damage and brain diffusion. His bicept tenden was shredded as well as his ACL. My husband has gone through several surgeries and workers comp has paid for these, but when a firefighter medically retires he only gets 65% of his pay, that alone was a devastating blow to our income consisdering I was in school full time and had to take a year off to take care of my husband, after a year I went back to subbing for the Cabot School District and was a full time student at Harding University taking night classes to try and hurry to finish my degree. I am currently still taking classes online and will finish at the end of this summer. Over the past year now we have been fighting with workers comp because they have made things very hard for us and in January of this year we had a hearing to attend for a judge to decide whether my husband was permanently disabiled, and up until this time we have not recieved any help what so ever from the state of Arkansas. The claim commission will only award $10,000 if you are injured in the line of duty, We have reached out to the Public Safety Officers Benefit Program in Washington but have not heard anything and that was submitted in July of 2014. The only statis update I get is that it is still in the legal department. We have exhausted all resources financially, so far we have been on this journey for over 3 years now and it has not gotten any easier. I am here to not only ask for your help but to also raise awareness that police and fire are not taken care of financially when they are injured in the line of duty and are forced to medically retire because they can no longer do their job. When you have a family member that is killed in the line of duty they are taken care of very well by several different resources, which they should be. The judge rendered her decision on April 30th, she gave the following percentages 61% for wages lost, and 70% as a disability rating...Sounds great so far doesn't it, here is the bad news...Workers Comp put in that they wanted to place an "OFFSET" on the ratings, which means this...with both ratings that equals out to be $175,000, the "OFFSET" from workers comp takes away from that total. As of 5/18/15 I spoke with our attorney and he informed me that workers comp will not be offsetting from both percentages...that's good news...here comes the bad news, while talking with the work comp attorney, he informed our attorney that he would be appealing the ratings to the workers comp commission, which means we would end up with less. As it stands right now without the appeal, we would get $60,000 and that is a huge amount and a blessing, but think about it this way, my husband still had 15 more years to retire, and was going to stay with the fire department well past that. Worker comp is currently paying on his first MMI rating but that will end next month and once that happens we will have to live off of his Retirement which is only $1900/mo. First Responders serve their communities in all different capacities and deserve better than this. I hope to one day change this but like everything else, it is going to take time.
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My name is Ashley Bowmaster, and I am the wife of Jason Bowmaster who is now medically retired from Jacksonville Fire Department after 14 years of service. On March 19, 2012 around 10:45PM, my husband and his Captain responded to a single vehicle accident that hit a gas main on Hwy 161 at the 8400 block. The woman of that vehicle was fine, but the gas main still needed to be shut off. Unfortunately, Engine 4 did not have the proper fitting to shut the gas main off. My husband, his Captain, and a police officer were standing off to the side of the road in a drive way with their reflective vests on waiting for the gas company to come and shut off the gas main, meanwhile the woman that was in the accident called her son Bryce Allen to come and pick her up. Bryce Allen showed up in a tan mini van, and without haulting, accelerated and hit my husband, his captain, and a police officer. Captain Donald Jones was killed instantly. My husband and the police officer was severly injured. My husband sustained the following injuries...his femur was broken in 3 places, he had 5 broke ribs, a partial collapsed lung which ended in a fully collapsed lung, his pelvis was broken in half, his clavicle was broke, he bruised his spleen, he had lacerations to his face and hands, he sustained blunt head force trauma, which has effected his speech and left him with frontal lobe damage and brain diffusion. His bicept tenden was shredded as well as his ACL. My husband has gone through several surgeries and workers comp has paid for these, but when a firefighter medically retires he only gets 65% of his pay, that alone was a devastating blow to our income consisdering I was in school full time and had to take a year off to take care of my husband, after a year I went back to subbing for the Cabot School District and was a full time student at Harding University taking night classes to try and hurry to finish my degree. I am currently still taking classes online and will finish at the end of this summer. Over the past year now we have been fighting with workers comp because they have made things very hard for us and in January of this year we had a hearing to attend for a judge to decide whether my husband was permanently disabiled, and up until this time we have not recieved any help what so ever from the state of Arkansas. The claim commission will only award $10,000 if you are injured in the line of duty, We have reached out to the Public Safety Officers Benefit Program in Washington but have not heard anything and that was submitted in July of 2014. The only statis update I get is that it is still in the legal department. We have exhausted all resources financially, so far we have been on this journey for over 3 years now and it has not gotten any easier. I am here to not only ask for your help but to also raise awareness that police and fire are not taken care of financially when they are injured in the line of duty and are forced to medically retire because they can no longer do their job. When you have a family member that is killed in the line of duty they are taken care of very well by several different resources, which they should be. The judge rendered her decision on April 30th, she gave the following percentages 61% for wages lost, and 70% as a disability rating...Sounds great so far doesn't it, here is the bad news...Workers Comp put in that they wanted to place an "OFFSET" on the ratings, which means this...with both ratings that equals out to be $175,000, the "OFFSET" from workers comp takes away from that total. As of 5/18/15 I spoke with our attorney and he informed me that workers comp will not be offsetting from both percentages...that's good news...here comes the bad news, while talking with the work comp attorney, he informed our attorney that he would be appealing the ratings to the workers comp commission, which means we would end up with less. As it stands right now without the appeal, we would get $60,000 and that is a huge amount and a blessing, but think about it this way, my husband still had 15 more years to retire, and was going to stay with the fire department well past that. Worker comp is currently paying on his first MMI rating but that will end next month and once that happens we will have to live off of his Retirement which is only $1900/mo. First Responders serve their communities in all different capacities and deserve better than this. I hope to one day change this but like everything else, it is going to take time.
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Organizer
Ashley Nease Bowmaster
Organizer
Cabot, AR
