Erik's Journey

My brother’s life changed drastically the other night when he thought he was just out for a good wakeboarding session with his closest friends and family. Unfortunately, the night didn’t end as planned when Erik was left hopeless in the water after the boat was accidently put into reverse and the propeller destroyed the bottom half of his left leg. Thank God for every individual on the boat that day that helped save Erik's life. From my dad and Brian jumping in to save him, to his best friend Nick who tied off his leg, and everyone else to helped keep him calm and ensuring him he was going to be alright. They were about ten minutes from shore and then about a 15-minute ambulance ride to the hospital. After getting Erik to the hospital they spent about 3 hours running different test to see if the leg was repairable and that’s when the Doctors had no choice but to amputate it from the knee down. Despite the pain, Erik stayed conscious through everything until it was time for surgery, where they put him out. Before going in for surgery the doctor said he was unsure how much of the leg he was going to be able to save. Thankfully Erik's best friend’s mother Tina works in the OR of the hospital and came in off duty and kept checking on Erik throughout the surgery and stayed with us through it all letting us know they were able to save the knee. After about 3.5 hours of operating on Erik the Doctor came to us to inform us how everything went. He said he barely had enough skin and muscle to close up the wound but was able to do it leaving Erik with only a 25-35% chance that what he did for Erik would heal properly without having to amputate higher. The Doctor has never seen a leg in the condition of Erik’s and did a phenomenal job, which has now granted us the satisfaction that he now has a 50% chance of it healing properly.  The past few days have been filled with many emotions, we are very grateful to have Erik here with us, but loosing a leg can be devastating to anyone. 

 

As many of you may know Erik has been working for may dad for many years, which unfortunately does not have any health benefits. The other struggle Erik has is that he does not qualify for any E.I benefits because he is a family member of the owner. So I’m reaching out to family and friends in this time of need to help raise money for Erik's new leg so when he is healed we can help him get back to his active lifestyle. Erik and our Family thank you all in advance for all the support.