Oscar Castillo has been an employee of Southwest Concrete Paving since 2016. During this time, he has become a valuable team member and more importantly a member of the SWCP family. Oscar’s work ethic and sense of duty has stood out from day one, and he quickly became a go-to guy on the batch plant crew of the company.

Oscar is fairly shy and doesn’t say much, but he works like a mad man. He takes a lot of pride in what he does and is always willing to help his fellow co-workers. Oscar has always been soft spoken, gentle, and kind, and he is universally loved and respected by his peers – without exception.

In late October of this year, while working at Hill AFB, in Utah, Oscar began experiencing some significant abdominal pains. As is typical of Oscar, he did not complain, and fought through the pain going to work every day and getting his job done. Eventually, the pain became too severe, and Oscar had to relent and make an emergency room visit. It is fortunate he did not wait any longer than he did, as the source of the pain he felt was a serious infection in his gall bladder. The infection had become so severe that it had spread to his pancreas and done significant internal damage. We later found out that this damage was severe enough that it had essentially killed the organ.

Oscar was admitted to the hospital, and the days slowly turned into weeks. The infection in his body was so severe that surgical procedures to repair the organs were off the table until vital signs could be stabilized. Oscar was forced into a medically induced coma, and there was a real chance that the infection could take his life. As Thanksgiving approached, and several weeks of extended hospital stay had passed, there was thought about sending Oscar back to Arizona to have the operation he needed here, but the local doctors thought the journey would be too dangerous and mandated he stay until operative procedures could be safely conducted in Utah.

That day finally arrived yesterday, and Oscar’s surgery to remove his gall bladder and stabilize his pancreas was thankfully successful. Unfortunately, the infection did enough damage to make him insulin dependent for the remainder of his life. We are hoping Oscar can safely return home to Arizona in the next week or so.

Obviously, this extended hospital stay has taken a financial toll on Oscar and his family. Adding to this difficulty – Oscar’s wife and daughter had been in a serious car accident just before his bout of sickness, and Oscar’s wife had broken several ribs and sustained other non-life threatening but serious, injuries. The Castillo family has been though a lot this fall, and we love them and want to help them through this difficult period. We are asking for donations to help offset the large medical bills which are looming over the Castillo’s. Oscar is a wonderful man, and this is a great family. Anything you could spare would be greatly appreciated.