Casie's Recovery Fund

As a friend of Casie’s, seeing her go through what she has, helping her along the way. Having an understanding of the obstacles she faces. We have come here to look for help. Below are testimonials from Casie herself as well as her mother, who is currently caring and supporting her. We keep looking for help, based on the grey area that is regarding insurance cases. Casie is stuck in a grey area that has her in a very tough situation. She has not given up, nor will she. But I know a little bit of help will go a very long way for her and her mother. You can read Casie’s experiences below, but to make it clear up front. In 2014 Casie was hit by car while riding in the bike lane. She suffered multiple injuries, racking up over 250k in medical bills, without ever seeing any of her injuries treated properly. She was employed but did not have medical insurance at the time of accident. Due to this she has not been able to get the rehabilitation she needs. Current status of things we are still trying to do to get help:  Casie has tried to hold down jobs but working with people and multitasking cause her problems now.  She is appealing her declined disability assistances. 

The money that we are looking for is to pay previous medical bills as well as allow her to get treatment moving forward. She wants to get physical therapy and occupational therapy to assist her in getting back to being a productive member of society.


Casie has come a long way from where she was. We are all very happy to see her still alive. We were also are hoping to find the assistance soon to get her the help she needs to see her happy again too.


Below are Casie and Casie’s mom
Connie’s stories.


Casie’s story,


The day was September 30, 2014. I had just moved home in February and began a new job in July. No insurance at the time.  I remember the morning and going to work. I happen to get off early and decide to ride my bike since I left it in the warehouse and it was a beautiful day. I remember thinking about the fillet dinner I was going to cook for mom and myself that night a rare treat.  I remember the 14 mile ride up until about 10 minutes before impact. I was about 1 mile from the house before my life changed forever.

        The accident was me in the bike lane abiding by all laws. Wearing bright visible colors and had lights on my bike.  A guy cuts across 2 lanes of traffic to get into the turning lane and hit me at about 60 MPH. I flew up into his windshield and almost had my arm ripped off. Then I flipped up into the air end over end like a ragdoll until I landed in the middle of the street per the police report. I have no memory of the accident or 2 years after. I was run over by A Florida Hillsborough County school teacher who specializes in vision. The lord has a sense of humor.
                  He is not a very good person and has also been arrested for theft, writing bad checks, many traffic citations, and his house has been in foreclosure a few times.  Unfortunately, he did not have enough insurance to cover my injuries, loss of work, or anything else. He got a ticket in traffic court for about $149.00 and I now have over 250,000 in medical bills and my brain has not healed for me to hold down a steady job.   

     After the accident next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital (I was disoriented and unaware of that) I woke up screaming, cursing and wouldn't let people near
me. I had thought I had been kidnaped and was about to have my organs sold on the black market expecting to awake in a tub of ice, that is what my family and friends told me that is what I believed to be happening.

What I remember from the hospital is like a still photograph of people standing around me. I basically have 2 years, so far, on post amnesia. In the accident I broke my back (no cord
damage but other issues),TBI with frontal lobe hemorrhage and other contusions on brain, fractured fibula, broken ankle and one  ankle severely sprained, focal seizures, severe laceration on left arm, road rash everywhere. I came very close to losing my life due to him reaching for a bottle of water.

        Now, it has been 3 years and without my mom and my friends I would have lost my mind. This has changed me forever. I now have no short term memory, cognitive defects, headaches, vertigo, PTSD, Brain fatigue, tire rapidly, frustration, had to teach myself how to read, and now working on math, no problem solving skills, chronic pain, get confused, aggressive, emotionally driven, and the list goes on and on. I keep trying to work and I just lost my 3rd job because I cannot perform given task physically and, mentally. The list goes on and on. I cannot seem to hold down a job and some of my deficits may be worsening but I will do everything I can to prevent that. I have good and bad days, and do all I can to stay positive, have faith, and put my best foot forward.  


Connie’s account of events






On Tuesday afternoon September 30 2014 I arrived home and Casie was not home from work yet which was unusual she was usually home before me. By six pm I was really worried and I called her cell and had to leave a voicemail. Now I was really worried and so was Shane her dog who was pacing back and forth from the door to the window. About 7pm I received a call from a man who said he was a clergy from Tampa General Hospital and asked me if I had a daughter named Casie, I immediately picked up on the word “had”  so I screamed is she alive? Is she still alive? All he could say was you better get here fast they are working on her. She has asked for her father. Well I knew she must be dying if she asked for her father since she had not spoken to him in years. I grabbed my keys, told the dog Shane to start praying for her momma and left to go to the hospital. I called my oldest daughter, Marcy on the way and my adopted daughter Crystal and do not remember the drive getting there in less than 10 minutes, a normal 20 minute drive.

Upon arrival I was met by a friend of hers that had drove upon the wreck right after it happened and followed the ambulance to the hospital he did not know my name or number to give the hospital just her name. He did recognize me and pointed me in the right direction.

The nurse took me right back to her, she was unconscious and they were stitching her arm up she had a big gash missing in her upper arm in a double row and they were trying to get the skin back together at the time. They had already given her a MRI and determined she had a brain bleed. There was a puddle of blood on the floor as big as two volleyballs from a puncture wound in her right calf that they had not had time to get to yet and did not seem really worried about but kind of freaked me out just draining blood like that. She had what is called road rash all over her body that is where she slid over the pavement after bouncing off the car. What totally amazed me was that she had the road rash on every toe and both feet, but she was wearing tennis shoes and bootie socks when the car hit her, which were thrown off her feet and did not have a single drop of blood on the shoes or the socks I cannot imagine how hard you have to be hit for that to happen. To have you shoes and socks kicked off your feet!

Well the first night in ICU the man who hit her insurance company called wanting me to sign some papers ---Can you imagine? I am wondering if my child will live and they want me to sign papers. I hung up on them. My daughter is screaming to get away because she has no idea where she is and what happened to her and I still did not even know at that point the full extent of injuries we found out that night her back was broke, her leg was broken, her ankle tendon was injured, shoulder was injured, whiplash, hip injury, wrist injury and these were just to the bones and tendons and muscles oh I for all of her teeth were knocked loose and continue to give major problems now. They will be giving her pain for the rest of her life I am sure.

The doctor told me at the time of the accident if she had not been in such good physical health from riding her bike 12 miles to and from work every day she never would have survived this hit by a car going 55-60 miles per hr.  A nurse also told me that most people that get hit by cars going that fast lose all of their fingers and toes. So we are very blessed in that way.

When the hospital learned that my daughter did not have insurance and that the man that hit her did not have insurance they sent her home from direct from ICU after 4 days. I had to go back to work to make sure we had a place to live so I had to leave he dog Shane in charge
daily, and thank God for good friends coming daily to bathe, feed and watch over Casie while I worked. If not for Crystal I don’t know what we would have done. She took care of her like a true sister and we could not have done it without her. It was three months before Casie could even bathe herself and Crystal and I got it done. She made sure she ate daily she called her kept her
company encouraged her and really pushed her. Our neighbor Cassie was invaluable also she was there for us too, most memorable was when Casie dropped her spoon and could not retrieve it Cassie came over and found it for her so she could eat her pudding.

         Casie worked hard to overcome the physical problems, exercising daily doing the therapy recommended and is the best she can probably be. We did not figure on the TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) or the PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), because at first we were just so grateful she was alive that God had saved her. That she would heal from the injuries she had eventually she would always have pain and issues but she would heal and she was alive. As time went by I started noticing things were not right with her. She was not the same person as before. She was very quick to lose her temper over simple little things and I don’t mean lose it in a small way but in a throwing cups / plate’s way over nothing she never was like that before. It was not getting better with time either. We started working on ways to deal with the anger ways to diffuse it before it got out of hand take a walk outside, stop what she is doing and breathe and walk off with Shane, exercise.

Anything to expend the energy of anger we have tried and it has helped but not cured. Another thing has been her emotions she was never ever a crier and since she was hit and has the TBI she cannot control her emotions, will start crying without even knowing why and cannot stop. Since this is so alien to her it has drove her crazy she feels she cannot control her own self anymore. She had always been a very good cook and now she cannot a meal because she cannot get the whole meal to come out at the same time so she gets frustrated and angry and quits. She can cook one thing only.  Anything that takes doing more than one thing at a time she is not able to do and she was able to do it before. She was practically a genius before she was hit and I am not kidding. She was one of the smartest people I knew, she knows she lost that too.

        She can’t work now she has tried, Social Security has turned her down, she needs
some kind of rehab to be trained for work and her insurance probably will not
pay for it and we do not have money for it.

We tried now for the past 3 years to do it on our own and now we just can’t anymore. I’m 63 and worry what will happen if something happens to me and I’m not here to take care of her or if I lose my job.   

Below are pictures of Casie, before and after the accident.