It's crazy how a couple of seconds can change your life forever. July 9th, 2025 is a day we will never forget, the day my husband David and I had our lives turned upside down. We live in Texas and we're getting record rainfall. The Kerrville flooding tragedy just happened, it was still pouring and making things worse. David and our boss had an emergency IT job, so we packed up the Mitsubishi Mirage and off they went. About two and a half hours later I get a call from David's phone, which was unusual. I pick up to another man's voice and David screaming in the background. The paramedic says, " Your husband has been in an accident. He has a broken leg and bruised ribs but he is stable. We will be bringing him to University Hospital in San Antonio." I ask about my boss, but he doesn't know of his condition other than he was in the first ambulance. I hang up and my stomach drops then go tell my boss's wife.

For the next 24 hours we try to get as much information as possible. We don't have a car because three days prior the van got put in the shop. As we wait for our ride, it gets later and later. We get more worried by the silence of no calls. University hospital is a 4 hour ride from our house making it not as easy and quick of a trip to get there. It was around 36 hours when my boss's wife finally heard information on her husband. We then realized just how bad the accident was.

As they were driving to the job they got to 15 miles before Fredericksburg, TX, it had already started pouring. David started hydroplaning, went off the road into a tree. There was a big rock in front of the tree which was up an embankment. They were doing about 60 mph when they hit. With the incline and the impact of the crash the car bounced back, then flipped to land on the driver side door when It finally came to a stop. Smoke started pouring in the vents, David thought the car was on fire. Then in about a minute that felt like an eternity, all the smoke cleared and he could breathe again. David had his foot on the brake and felt the impact go up his leg. This led him to have a compound fracture that shattered his whole right lower leg into 30 pieces. This would be the worse case the orthopedic surgeon had seen this year, I would later find out. As the car came to a stop people had already pulled over to come help. Between David pushing and the people pulling, they managed to get my boss out of the car, he was knocked out from the impact and was making it hard for David to breathe . As David tried to pull himself out he realized he was trapped and couldn't get out of the car. It took an hour for the firefighters to cut the roof off. As he sat there in the poring rain, trapped in the car he thought how much pain he was in, that this was not going to end well for his leg. It was the stuff of nightmares. (Which he had for months after the accident)

Now out of the car, David's leg was mangled and dangling, he was bleeding out and in excruciating pain. While he thought the pain couldn't get any worse, it did, as they had to put three tourniquets on to stop the bleeding to a minor drip. The tourniquets were the worse pain he has ever felt in the 43 years he has been alive. However, he did say after they got him stabilized and they started on their hour and a half ride to the hospital, the paramedics did an amazing job of making him as pain free as possible. We are so truly grateful for all of the people (EMTs, Firefighters, cops, the people who pulled over, doctors, nurses and later the surgeons) who helped work on saving my husband and his boss that day. They are all true Angels, without them my husband would not be alive today.

Now in University Hospital in San Antonio, they start thinking, explaining and trying to decide what to do with his leg, repair iit or amputate. All while I am trying to still figure out how to get down to be with my husband. I can't thank the EMT, who grabbed David's, phone enough. This was the only way I was able to see him (FaceTime) before I got there. David tells them if it is too hard to save his leg, multiple surgeries, long recovery with not being able to walk, to then just do the amputation. The surgeons end up deciding that they can fix his leg and he would take about a year to walk again. This starts the long process of surgeries, doctor appointments, physical therapy, etc...

July 10th David went in for a 3 hour surgery to stop all the bleeding in his leg. On the 11th, a 7 hour surgery to reconstruct his lower right leg. The took skin graphs for arteries and veins from his upper right arm. The skin flap to close his wound from his lower right arm. Another piece of skin from his upper right thigh for his arm. Then they put in a crazy amount of hardware to fix the broken bone and pieces of bone he was missing, along with a lot of screws to keep it all in place. Then on July 12th (the day I finally got to see my husband for the first time since the accident) another 7 hour emergency surgery to fix some of the arteries that weren't pumping properly. All in 3 days time. He also had 5 broken ribs on the right side from the seatbelt. He never complained about this pain. I believe they healed quicker because he had to lay still for several weeks.

This started a 40 day count down of him being in the hospital. 25 days was spent in intensive 24 hour care ICU. 5 days in another ICU unit on the other end of the same floor he was on in the hospital. Then 10 days in-patient rehab to learn how to do everyday tasks in a wheelchair or with a walker. However, this hospital gave him his LIFE and HOPE that he could walk again. We knew it was going to be a long journey, to get there but we were going to make it work, and now we had a plan.

He finally came home to me August 17th. This is when reality started to hit that it will be a challenge to get accustomed to. We live on a farm, in a trailer, as farmhands. So first thing, there is no way he could live in the trailer while he recovered. The stairs are impossible to get up half the time without injury. The trailer is narrow and small, it was small when he was not hurt and it was definitely small now especially with our 3 pitbulls and David in a wheelchair. Our boss was nice and offered us a room in the main house. The hospital was supposed to get us a wheelchair, shower seat, walker, set us up with home health care and wound care, but nothing with any of that after San Antonio, we were on our own. My boss had a wheelchair and walker he could use for going out and to doctor appointments. It was small for him, my husband is a bigger fellow. I gave him sponge baths because he couldn't get his leg wet with the wounds on his leg. We were also lucky enough to have a friend give him an older electric jazzy (wheelchair) to use around the farm. All and all we made it work somehow.

I also became a wound care nurse, lol. Since we couldn't find find anywhere to go around where we live, in the middle of nowhere Texas. However because I really did not go to school for nursing and this was such a big wound to take care of (as I later found out even for the wound care professionals to take care of him themselves) I wanted him to have a professional look at him in case something went wrong and he needed special care. We found a wound care office in our closest town (50 mins one way). They wanted him him to come 3 times a week but we were paying out of pocket so we couldn't afford the visits and gas money to get there. So we bought all the medical supplies that they use which came to about $150 a month and I changed his bandages and we went once a week to the clinic. David was the main income in our household. We had now gone through any money we had saved. Stress started to build up.

Four months into the healing process, we go to David's wound care appointment, October 28th. There was a part of his wound that had a hole that they stick a Q-tip in to see how deep it was. We didn't know this caused a pocket of infection to break open. We get home from the appointment and he was in a lot of pain. As the day goes on he starts getting nauseous. Five o'clock he is burning up. I take his temperature, 103.7 fever. We rush him to our closest hospital. When we get into the room in the ER the doctor takes off his bandage to look at his leg and it sprays a funnel of yellow pus onto the floor. They start tests and give him two IV bags of antibiotics and pain meds. Then tell him they are going to admit him for surgery to clean out the hardware and wound. As we go and discuss David getting put under for yet another surgery, the doctor comes in to tell us he has set up an ambulance transport back to San Antonio. That was unacceptable as David's leg pain was too much for a 4 hour ambulance ride. We ended up making an appointment to go ourselves.

November 18th we go back down to University Hospital for the appointment with the plastic surgeon. He came in and we explain everything that's been going on. The surgeon asks a bunch of questions, tells us that his leg shouldn't have been leaking like it had been the whole time since he left the hospital. Says most likely you have a bone infection. Then takes one look at his leg and informs us it is so swollen that if he went in to check the bone for infection it would explode and he is afraid he wouldn't be able to close it back up. We ask "Ok so where do we go from here?" The doctor says "If we can't close it then we amputate. We knew this was a good possibility from the begining." He was going to try to come up with a plan that night since we had another doctor appointment in the morning with the orthopedic surgeon.

Davids heart sank, he felt that feeling of hope slip away. Frustration started to take over in sits place. He wanted them to amputate his leg from the begining if they thought it was a good chance that the surgeries weren't going to fix his leg. The night of the accident he was mentally preparing himself that he was losing his leg but when he wakes with a leg he was happy. Five months of healing, doctors, lots of pain, and thinking he was half way to walking to have it all taken away then have to start back at the begining. It was hard to wrap our heads around the news because we were under the impression that his leg was healing. Yes, maybe he had an infection but we couldn't believe there was no way to fix the infection without amputation. However we still had a chance with the next appointment in the morning. We go to the hotel to try to get some sleep. This is when the nightmares really started for David.

November 19th we get back to University Hospital for the orthopedic appointment, also to see what the plastic surgeon came up with. They brought David for an x-ray before the appointment started. We get called back, they unwrap his leg, put the x-ray upon the screen, ask a couple questions. They then tell us that they agree with plastics assessment of amputation. Well let's get the process of getting him admitted into the hospital and get the tests going that we need to run. We looked at each other, we talked then agreed we definitely needed a second opinion.

First, we didn't know how long he would be in the hospital and the first time I could only make it 3 days out of the 40 days he was there, since it was a 4 hour drive and we had no car. We wanted to go somewhere closer if this was going to be the final decision. Second, David was not very happy with the bed side manner. Third, while we were in the doctor appointments we heard him talking to other patients as the doctor went down room to room, 6 other people got told they had infections and 2 needed amputations. Fourth, as we were getting discharged from the appointments the nurses didn't even clean his wounds when they put the bandages on and his leg would leak all over his skin from the infection. Fifth, as we were leaving we asked if they could refer us somewhere closer to our area. To which they said that they were the best trauma surgeons, the only other doctors that could possibly do what they did, would be in Dallas or Houston which where the same distance and farther from our house. We decided we were definitely going somewhere else.

Couple days to Thanksgiving we look up and research some places and we decide Del Seton Hospital in Austin,TX only half the ride, two hours away. David had a wound care appointment who knows everything that had been going on. We tell him the doctors assessment to which they inform us a second opinion is smart. They also believe that the wound was healing good however, they weren't an orthopedic specialist so the bone infection was different territory for them. He gives David antibiotics for the week so we can spend Thanksgiving home since the doctors will most likely not do the surgery until after the holiday weekend. So we tried to enjoy it as much as we could but I saw it was not an easy thing for David. At this point he was in a lot of pain and having horrible nightmares of the accident since the amputation news. Instead of what happened he would be getting pulled out of the car but his leg would be missing. He would wake up screaming. I felt so bad and helpless that the man that I have loved and been married to for 18 years was in so much pain and going through all this yet could do nothing to fix this.

Monday December 1, the second opinion . We get to the ER check in, didn't even get to our seat and they called for triage, then the testing. Everything happened so fast. 2 doctors bring us into a room where the one doctor says,"This is the worst part of my job. I hate having to give bad news but we agree with Universities decision of amputation." He then explains that he has a bone infection his bone is not healing properly this is why he was in so much pain. It is an infection that couldn't be fixed by antibiotics however, if they do the amputation they will try for a below the knee and try to save as much of the leg as possible. We get him admitted into the hospital and the surgery is set for the next morning at 8 a.m., another 2 hour surgery. Then one more the day they let him out of the hospital to change the wound vac and stich him up which was 90 minutes. I stayed with him for the 5 days he was in the hospital. We had a much better experience all together in Del Seton. There was a nurse Kevin that was with us our first couple days who was the sweetest nurse ever that we nominated him for the Daisy Award for recognizing great health care providers. The Hanger Company came to the hospital 3 times while we were there to give him stump shrinkers and other supplies that he was going to need for aftercare. Which I was surprised at but grateful that they came to talk and explain what to expect since we are new at all this. It helped ease our minds which were already racing with a million thoughts. We absolutely love Del Seton Hospital in Austin and would recommend it to anyone in need.

December 17th we are 2 days shy of two weeks after the surgery. My husband had a follow up appointment to get the stitches out and the wound vac off. He's not out of the woods yet the doctor informed us 6 more weeks then we will be good. The surgeon who did the amputation is who he saw, he told David that his leg was the worst he had ever had to amputate in his career. His leg was so infected for so long that it made it hard like wood. What usually takes 30 mins took 2 hours with his amputation.

We are heading on a new journey in our lives. One where David is in much less pain. This is the least amount of pain that he has been in since the accident. I am sure we have a long road full of ups and downs. This has been such a humbling experience for my husband and I since it has significantly changed our lives forever.

We both worked everyday as farmhands doing heavy manual work. With me working on the farm it puts a roof over our head . David was the sole provider so we are now having a hard time with getting our monthly medications (some life saving for both of us) medical supplies, animal food and other personal supplies we need. I am also trying to figure out how to get a vehicle so I can get him to all his appointments he needs as we get further in the process. Physical therapy, prosthetic fittings and whatever doctor appointments he may need. I struggle with severe anxiety and getting in cars with others are my biggest fear. I would love to be able to go with my husband and give him support while he is working towards this new part of his life. As it is now we are having a hard time even managing gas money for anyone else to bring him where he has to go. We have always tried to take care of things ourselves so asking for help is not something that is easy or we are used to but it would change our stress levels and lives greatly. David is one of the most selfless people I have ever met. I don't know how, with the childhood abuse, he endured but it is why I fell in love with him. He has taught me there are still good people in this world. He has a heart of gold and would give the shirt off his back to a stranger. I thank God everyday that I get to wake up to him every morning for the past 18 years and that he made it through the accident.

We very much appreciate you reading our story and taking the time to consider helping us through this rough time in our lives. Any donation no matter how big or small will help us greatly. We will never take any help for granted. If you can't donate but could share this post it would be an amazing help too. As always prayers and positive vibes are welcomed and loved. We truly thank you form the bottom of our hearts for all you can do. We will give updates as we get into the new year. We wish you a very happy, healthy and safe holiday season. God Bless.

Dawn and David

12-18-25