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Beloved Coach and Friend Needs Help

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The legs don’t work the way they once did anymore.

They can’t power up against an opposing lineman on the football field, or stand strong on a wrestling mat, waiting for an opportunity to pivot and throw an opponent.

The legs these days require a walker for the hobbled giant to move his massive 6-foot-2, 315-pound frame around his mother Sandra’s home.

Derek Fewell can no longer live on his own. He can’t attend his beloved church, Center Baptist, where he serves as a trustee and Sunday School teacher.

Most distressing, he can’t work and hasn’t worked since the first week of January. His doctors can’t tell him when he might get back to supporting himself. It could be three months or possibly longer.

Since January 4, Derek – a once-towering scholastic and collegiate athletic threat – has mostly been resigned to a bed, enduring weeks in hospitals and rehabilitation clinics, recuperating from three serious surgeries on his left leg due to an unexpected onslaught of cellulitis and a vicious sepsis infection.

Derek almost lost his left leg in early January following one emergency procedure to reduce the swelling that had caused the limb to balloon beyond its normal size.

As it is, nearly one-third of his left leg is now gone, removed by doctors in an effort to save the rest.

Surgery No. 4 is scheduled for Monday, February 15 – a skin graph procedure to try and restore needed substance where tissue and muscle once was. He is expected to be admitted back to CaroMont Regional Medical Center in Gastonia for another week to recuperate.

The surgeries have taken a terrible toll. The once jovial, grinning and laughing man, who was like a best friend to everyone he met, is now withdrawn and sullen, worried about the future and fearing the arrival each day of the postal service, dreading the receipt of another medical bill demanding he proffer the portion his insurance won’t cover.

One doctor almost refused him treatment because of the outstanding debt. The worry is like an added injury, a debilitating cloud that refuses to dispel.

It’s more than his meager annual earnings can afford.

For years, Derek has given back to his community and, more specifically, the student athletes and special needs students at eight high schools and colleges in North and South Carolina.

In high school, Derek was renowned for his prowess on the football field, the track field and the wrestling mat, where he was a state runner-up and Western Regional champion in the heavyweight division.

He attended Appalachian State University on a football scholarship, splitting his time between both the offensive and defensive line. After graduating in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and a minor in Sociology, Derek immediately went to work, sharing his athletic knowledge and his compassion for helping young minds excel.

He currently coaches football and serves as a teaching assistant, responsible for special needs students with Autism Spectrum Disorder and traumatic brain injuries, at his alma mater, Ashbrook High School.

Over the past 22 years, he has held the same positions, plus coached wrestling and track, at Forestview High School, North Greeneville University, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Clover High School, West Mecklenburg High School and South Mecklenburg High School.

Derek has spent nearly every summer giving his time as a mentor and coach at various locations sponsored by Sports International Football Camps. He has assisted players like Brad Hoover (Carolina Panthers), Matt Light (New England Patriots), Art Monk (Washington Redskins) and others.

The experience was not for profit. Derek simply loved giving back. It’s how he learned growing up and how he became the man he is today.

Derek will turn 46 years old in June.

Despite working his entire adult life, he makes just $23,000 a year before taxes.

His medications currently cost him $112 in co-payments. He has been told he will have to begin paying out of pocket for the bandages that dress his leg and protect his wounds from infection. He expects to receive a bill for his portion of the home health care team that comes to his mother’s house twice daily to change his bandages. And that doesn’t include his portion of costs from the surgeries and extended hospital and rehab stays.

On its own, those costs would be bad enough. But Derek also has a car payment ($600/month), an electric bill ($30/month), his car insurance and renter’s insurance ($160/month) and credit card payments (he has three credit cards currently with a total balance of $1,600) to worry about.

Derek was my best friend from Grier Junior High on through our three years at Ashbrook. He regularly stayed at my family’s home, and was treated like a son by my mother and father. He has stayed in contact with my Dad since we graduated, even as our paths diverged for years while we both sought out future goals.

Derek and I reconnected in 2010 when my father was rushed to CaroMont with his own life-threatening illness. He was there for me as I spent weeks back home, not knowing if my Dad would survive. He was there for me again in 2014 when my mother succumbed suddenly to cancer.

Now it’s my turn to be there for him. And I know I’m not alone. I know so many people have been touched by Derek’s generosity, his kindness, his infectious laugh. He is a gentle giant who never had a cross word for anyone he encountered.

Derek needs our help. He needs our financial support. Any donation you can make, no matter $5 or $50 or more, will go directly to him through this campaign for Derek to use to pay his medical bills, his personal bills and to provide him with a safety net once he is fully recovered.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and for opening your hearts and wallets to make a donation to his cause.

There are no words to express how much it will mean, but thank you and God bless you will have to suffice for now.
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Donations 

  • Troy Blackwell
    • $50 
    • 6 yrs
Donate

Organiser and beneficiary

John Allman
Organiser
Gastonia, NC
Derek Fewell
Beneficiary

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