Aid Jeremy Buckner's Long Road to Recovery

Hello all, our names are Adam and Stephanie Buckner. We are starting this GoFundMe for our son, Jeremy Buckner.

On May 16th, he was on the way to the cemetery to see his grandparents. Visiting them in the middle of the night was a way for Jeremy to cope with not being able to sleep. Unfortunately, he did not make it to see them that night. In the early morning hours, he was involved in a single-car rollover accident. He doesn’t remember, and we are unsure of what made him lose control of his car. He traveled roughly 100 yards, about half of that in the air, flipping and twisting before his car struck a tree and landed upside down in a roughly 8-foot deep ditch. What we now consider an angel was on his way home from work and saw our son’s car upside down in the bottom of the ditch because his lights were still on an hour later after he had crashed and called 911. If it wasn’t for this person, I do not think our son would be alive today.

Jeremy suffered a lot of traumatic injuries. He was ejected from the vehicle, conscious, and unable to do anything but scream due to the excruciating pain he was in when the ambulance arrived. He was airlifted to Javon Bea in Rockford, Illinois, in critical condition. He was listed as a John Doe when he was admitted because his phone had been lost while his car was rolling. The hospital made attempts to locate family unsuccessfully. This was around 5 am at this point. While all of this was going on, Adam and I were going about our day as usual. I was getting ready for work at FHN in the Urology department, and Adam was getting ready to go on a field trip with our granddaughter. Everything came crashing down when his ex-wife called us around noon and asked Adam if Jeremy was ok. He had been at the hospital alone for almost 8 hours at this point. Adam and I had no idea any of this was going on. Jeremy left for work early every day. Him not being there when we woke up was not unusual. He is a hard worker. Had she not called, we would have never known he was fighting for his life without us near him.

Adam called me frantic, asking if I knew about J. I told him no and rushed from work in Freeport to try to find our son. Adam, in the meantime, rounded up our granddaughter and headed from Madison Zoo to meet me in Rockford. We were told where he was airlifted to, but since he was listed as a John Doe, no one knew it was him we were looking for. We were all calling different hospitals, having other family calling the hospitals. By another miracle, I got a call from a trauma nurse at Javon Bea. She and the trauma doctor filled me in on what was going on, and I relayed it to Adam and his ex-wife. My sister and her daughters rushed to the hospital since they were closer to get things figured out while Adam and I made our way to him. None of us were prepared for what we came to see. Jeremy was intubated, had a neck brace on, and wires and cords poking out everywhere. His right eye was swollen shut. He had a softball-sized hematoma on the right side of his head; we hardly recognized our own son. He had several cuts across his forehead and down the left side of his cheek. He had a chest tube because he had partially collapsed both lungs and had aspirated some dirty water from a creek he was found lying in. His left femur was broken, his right tibia and fibula were in a compound fracture, he has 4 broken vertebrae, two broken ribs, swelling around the nerves in his left arm which makes it unable to move or have any feeling in it at this point, and his left shoulder was broken. To this point, he has had two surgeries. One the first day he was at the hospital to place rods and screws in both of his legs. The second was to rebuild his left shoulder and add screws and plates to it. He has had 5 MRIs and countless bloodwork, shots, antibiotics, and pain management in the week he has been here.

He was taken out of the ICU and off of the critical list 5 days after arriving. We thank God that our son is alive. Jeremy will have several months of recovery as he learns to walk, eat, and regain the ability to be himself again. We are asking for any support you are able to make to cover his vast medical expenses, the continuing care he will need in rehab, and the in-home care he will need over the next several months. He had just started a new job within the last 2 months and was not eligible for short-term disability. He will have no income until he returns to work. We will be covering all of his expenses until then. There is also a savings account at Solutions Bank under Jeremy Buckner Medical Fund, but if you are unable or uncomfortable making a financial donation, we always welcome prayers.

Thank you all and God bless you.