Help us help our Mom; Rest in Peace Dad

It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that our Dad, Richard, has passed away. Dad was our hero, friend, and the best father that anyone would be lucky enough to have. He always put our family first, and even through the 6 ½ months of Hell he endured, all he wanted was to come back to us. Below we want to describe the journey of his life, and especially the past 6 months.

Our dad did not have an easy life, but that never stopped him. In the early months of being married to our mom, our dad was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in his neck. He went through rigorous chemo treatments for months and beat his cancer! However, this was just the beginning. Once healed, our dad started his lifelong career. Our dad spent his entire life as an active duty FDNY member, ending his career as Deputy Chief. He spent his career as a leader and trailblazer, mentoring new members and shaping them to perform at the best of their abilities. He started his career as a paramedic and he knew he was made for this job. Balancing three kids, he gave his all for his job and his family. He worked countless overnight shifts to make sure he would be there to pick us up in the afternoon. A moment in time that stands out in everyone’s lives, but ours especially, was September 11, 2001.

Our dad was out on workmans comp with an injured knee and staples down the length of his leg at the time of 9/11, and he was home with Brad and Emilly watching cartoons that morning. As soon as their show ended, he decided to put on the news and saw what was going on. Without hesitating, he put his leg onto the table and removed every staple from his leg with pliers, and ran into work, where he then didn't return home for days. This truly exemplifies his character; all he ever wanted to do was help people and keep his family safe. Our Dad then continued to work on the pile for months on end. He saw things he could never speak about. That day, and the days and months that followed truly changed our dad, in many ways for the better. He is our Hero, and a hero to many others. After 9/11 my dad remained on the job, saving countless lives and leading many teams. He was honored for his dedication and bravery, and even opened a station that he ran for years before his next promotion. And he didn’t stop there. When Covid-19 arose my father took it upon himself to become certified in administering Covid vaccines, even after he worked through the pandemic, and caught the virus himself. He was dedicated. He was a helper. A hero.

Then about 6½ months ago, he underwent heart surgery for the second time in his life. From what was supposed to be a follow-up procedure from his first heart surgery 5 years ago has turned into a fight for his life. On August 30th, 2021 our dad had surgery for a dual valve replacement with repair to a third valve. Our hearts raced for the entirety of the routine 4-hour turned to 8 hour procedure. What we thought would be a 2-week recovery from this procedure has now turned into 6 months of Hell in which our dad has been enduring.

In the week following his procedure, he was in a medically-induced coma for 4 days. Upon finally waking up, and after spending 4 days with us, he went into a severe episode of sepsis consequently causing respiratory, cardiac, and renal failure. At this time, he was placed on continuous dialysis as well as ECMO-the life sustaining support for his heart and lungs- for this first time, and was in another coma for about 8 days. But without missing a beat, he woke up and looked at our mom and gave her a nice big wink. And things were good, he was talking to us and able to wean and successfully be removed from ECMO.

I wish we could say that after, things were on track to get better, but on September 8th, he went into respiratory, cardiac, and renal failure again. And this day was the last time we would be able to hear his voice. After being resuscitated, he was stable for about 36 hours, and went back into cardiac and respiratory failure. His team was able to resuscitate him in time and he was promptly placed on ECMO again. He was in a coma, yet again. While in this coma, he was successfully weaned off of ECMO, however he had a tracheostomy done, on September 24th- his 59th birthday of all days-and was no longer able to speak to us.

After that, my dad faced setback after setback as he was diagnosed with new infections, which seemed like it happened weekly. When all he wanted to do was go home, he was unable to as each infection would set his estimated date of leaving back another two weeks. This went on for months, and caused him to spend Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years all in his hospital bed. In this time we all worked tirelessly with my fathers team to rehab him as much as he could, and he started to get better.

Then finally, when everything was looking better and we were about a week out from beginning his paperwork to move from the CT-ICU to a step down unit- finally discharging from the ICU-Dad suffered a massive subarachnoid hemorrhage of his frontal lobe overnight from January 22nd-23rd. He was rushed to emergency neurosurgery in a life-saving procedure, and made it out after hours of worry. And while he made it out alive, he was far from okay. Following the procedure, he was sent into a coma, which he remained in until his final days. While in this coma for the past month, he also developed several other ischemic strokes, spanning portions of his cerebellum, most of the left occipital lobe, and diffuse small areas of ischemia.

In the final days of my fathers life there were plans to remove the blood clot offering some hope he may recover. He ultimately became too unstable for surgery and more problems arose than solutions could be provided. On March 1st at 11:02pm, our father passed away surrounded by his children and his wife- who he has spent his life with since he was 17 years old. This has been a horrible 6 ½ months, and we are posting this to try and alleviate some of the stress of funeral and medical expenses from this time. Thank you for reading and for loving our dad.

- Emily, Bradley and Tyler