Help Stan Heal from Auto Assualt

On September 12th Stan Wilson, father, grandfather, poet, activist, and our own Permi-Preacher, was walking across the highway near our home when he was hit by a right-wing meth-head who swerved toward him to run him down. The car came on him fast, swerving into him as he was almost across the road, breaking chunks off of the car as they smashed through his right side before speeding away. He was left in the road to die. Instead, with the same commitment to life he has brought to his years as an activist, he drug his body onto the shoulder of the highway where he lay bleeding and broken trying to wave down help. More than a dozen cars passed before someone stopped and called 911.

Luckily, our father, husband, friend and earth warrior survived. Luckily, Megan, his daughter, was on her way home and came upon the scene where she was able to be there with him offering him support and comfort while the ambulance arrived to transport him to the local trauma center. Luckily, the officer on scene was able to figure out the car model from the pieces of bumper and mirror they had broken off on Stan’s body so the perpetrators were arrested within the hour many miles from the scene of the assault. But, luck only goes so far.

While Stan was blessed with no life-threatening injuries, he sustained a shattered right arm where the mirror hit him and a shattered right leg where the bumper hit him as well as a broken right shoulder blade, a broken rib, and a broken left collarbone. Stan’s first surgery happened early in the morning of September 13th when they did reconstructive surgery on his right arm/elbow. The surgery took well over 4 hours as the doctor “put humpty-dumpty together again.”  Due to the severity of the leg breaks, they had to externally stabilize the leg, planning on doing two surgeries after the tissue had a week to heal. Fortunately, one week after the incident, they were able to repair both bones, including the section of his tibia the doctor said looked like “a potato chip after it’s been stepped on” in a single surgery! Thank you everyone for all the healing energy! 

Soon Stan will be heading home from the hospital and the truly hard part of healing will begin. For the next 3 months Stan will be wheelchair bound then will have a long road to regain mobility and strength. This means that we have to build a wheelchair ramp to the house and do a bit of other remodeling to ensure accessibility. It also means round the clock support for him until he is better able to manage on his own. The vehicle that hit him was uninsured and Medicaid will only pay for the most minimal of recovery care. This means that the holistic approach that is critically needed for best possible outcomes (doctors have already said there will be no full recovery from the injuries but we would like to try to prove them wrong) will only be accessible with your generosity.

We need a hospital bed to ensure his back and lungs do not decompensate during his recovery and he will need the best of nutrition, supplements, acupuncture, chiropractic work, and naturopathic care. In addition, once he is allowed to be weight bearing, we would like to take him to a sunny location where he can relearn to walk in safety without the risks inherent in snow and ice that will be filling our Montana world at that time. This support is critical to ensure his whole body has the best chance of recovery from the trauma visited upon him by a hateful person who only saw an old hippie in the road not the amazing human being we all know and love.

Stan is a 62 years old activist who has dedicated his life to environmental and social justice as well as the family daycare provider. After years on the front lines of environmental and social justice issues, he became the PermiPreacher during the Skills Tour.  Stan drove the Earth Activist Training Permaculture Demonstration Bus (Permibus)10’s of thousands of miles to share his wisdom and knowledge of permaculture and activist skills with thousands of people around the country. He now lives in the beautiful Bitterroot Valley in Montana, working to build the DIRT Center; a training center focused on teaching folks vital resiliency and permaculture skills that is so desperately needed in these challenging times.  Stan is committed to returning to health so may continue his life-long mission of working towards a better the world with a healthy planet and resilient communities but to do so he needs your help!

So let kindness outshine despair and let our bright light of our love burn away the moment of cruelty that has brought us here as we come together to heal and support our loving warrior for the earth and justice for all.

Blessings to you all,

-The Permi-Preacher Team!
Delyla, Megan, Cypress, Brook, and Chris