Aid the Rodriguez Family Through Tough Times

Hello everyone, my name is Daniel Rodriguez. I'm a proud father of two kids, Ethan and Arianna, and have been married for over 12 years. I also served in the US Army for almost 12 years. Both of my kids are on the spectrum (autism) and since they were toddlers, they have attended ABA therapies, speech therapies, occupational therapies, and more. One of the things that my son has problems with is sensory issues.

Last year on April 14, 2023, my wife had a car accident where my son Ethan was severely injured, and my daughter sustained minor injuries and bruises. Ethan took off his seatbelt because it was bothering him and my wife explained to me that when she looked back for a second to tell him to put his seatbelt on, she ran a red light and hit a tow truck. Luckily for us, a bystander called an ambulance right away and they were able to transport everyone to the hospital quickly and treat our son.

When I arrived at the hospital, I was taken by the nurses to my wife first, but I couldn't talk to her due to being interrogated by police. I immediately went to see my kids and when I found my son, I was devastated and had a panic attack because he was covered in dry blood. Hours later, he had to go into surgery and the picture you see was after his surgery. He has a scar that goes from his forehead to the back of his head.

After a police investigation was conducted, my wife was charged with DUI and was taken to jail from the hospital. While in the hospital, my wife provided the police with a blood sample. After the results came back, my wife had a very low alcohol % that wasn't even under the DUI range, but they also found some medications that when you look at the situation in black and white, is not recommended to drink alcohol while on those medications. The thing is my wife went through radio therapy due to ovarian cancer and the medications she was taking were within the prescribed amount.

Fast forward to this date, I had to pay money to bail my wife out of jail, hire a private lawyer, go through numerous court hearings until December 2023, and finally agreed to a plea deal because the District Attorney wanted to push for DUI and other charges. The plea deal would dismiss most of those charges but in order for me to pay for all those things, I had to get personal loans and had to max both of my credit cards.

Around February of this year, the Judge Advocate General's Corps (JAG) of the Army, decided to ask for restitution money of almost $20,000 for the medical expenses that TRICARE covered for the treatment of my kids because according to them, it was my wife's fault that the accident happened. We had to once again, go back to court to fight it and they agreed on a lower amount that is still impossible for me to pay due to all the expenses I've gone through. I tried doing another personal loan and five different banks denied me for having too much debt.

I'm just asking, if it's not too much, for some help to get out of this situation. I understand that we are all struggling in our own way, and I have made some sacrifices to try get some money but it's too many things happening at the same time. May God bless you and your family.