Hi, my names Derek and I’m 31 years old. I am married to my beautiful wife and I have a 6 year old daughter and another baby girl due in about 8 weeks. I recently came up on my 3rd year of sobriety and have been getting back in to a lot of my old hobbies, such as dirt biking, riding Harley’s and being present in life.

On Halloween, I was out at Fox raceway when I had an accident and completely shattered my L1 vertebrae. It is a serious spinal injury that is caused by trauma, that can lead to severe pain, deformity and even neurological issues. I will be in a back brace for a minimum of three months.

As a lot of you know, I do drywall for a living and obviously will be out of work for a while during recovery. I have months of doctors appointments , therapy and hard work ahead of me. My only trade is drywall and as most of you can imagine, I am scared and nervous on how to navigate through this time while supporting my growing family and keeping rent and bills paid, on top of medical expenses.

My family and I are praying for a speedy recovery so I can get back to normalcy.

Thank you for taking the time to hear my story, and any donation is immensely appreciated.