With a heavy heart I am sharing today that one of the most tragic things that could happen to a family has happened. We have lost a sweet and innocent soul, Joseph, to a tragic accident today August 28th, 2019.

Despite his Mother, Father, Grandmother, Medical intervention, and prayers his body could no longer sustain life. We all as parents try our best to be there and give the best to our children and it is easy to see that Dan and Stacy have done this. Joseph was only 4 years old and 4 months.  Due to Joseph’s Autism his parents feel like they were just starting to fully connect with Joseph in his own way. Dan and Stacy are grieving a loss of losing their son as well as not feeling like they were given enough time to fully know their child.

What we do know is this little guy was larger than life. His spirit was so bright and full of pure joy it radiated from him. He was a thinker and loved to create order, he would then enjoy mixing things up to create a more complex Joseph order.

In the caring words of my brother when we spoke he said

“I never fully understood how hard it was for him to be here with us; how painful it was and frustrating it was to not be able to communicate with us. I am happy that my Son is no longer in pain. I will take that pain now of him not being here so he can be free with the Lord in Paradise. I am his father that is my job to carry that. He was starting to come around we were doing things to help with his Autism and I looked forward to the day that I would get to hear Joseph say “Hello Daddy.” But I’ll never get that opportunity now.”

My sister in law, Stacy would giggle at the thought of Joseph’s spirit, how powerful and full of life he was. She said

“Joseph is the center of our family; how are we going to do life without him? I don’t know how we will ever function without him.”

This is a family of five, so full of love for one another and following God’s will for their lives. We are asking to please help to take some of the financial burden from them so they can grieve their son and support their other two children; older son John (6) and younger sister Joanna (3).

Dan is the only one that works outside of the home as a contractor 7 days a week. The family unfortunately did not have medical insurance at the time of this accident. Joseph was airlifted from their home and has spent 5 days in the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital. They will have to figure out funeral arrangements as well. With living in Alaska and all of their family being in Michigan and Illinois they will be doing much of this on their own.

I will do my best to tell you what happened so this family can focus on grieving their loss, so they don’t have to answer questions at this time or retell this horrific tragedy over and over again.  




Dan and Stacy live off of a lake. They have lived there for over 3 years and have only been down to the lake a handful of times as a family.  On Friday August 23rd, 2019 Joseph who hates water, even his bath time, made his way down to the lake and fell in. Stacy and her mother rushed in to try and save Joseph.

The water was very cold, the current was strong, every time they reached for him he drifted out further from their reach. Thankfully Dan arrived home from work at that time and heard the screaming down at the lake.  Dan ran straight into the lake, work boots and all, to pull Stacy and her Mother Heather out of the water. He did his best, as he was slipping and unable to touch the bottom, to swim to Joseph and eventually carry him to shore. All of them were battling hypothermia. An ambulance and helicopter were called and arrived about 15 minutes from Joseph being pulled out from the water. Heather instructed Dan how to do CPR after her body could no long support her efforts to try and resuscitate her grandson due to hypothermia. Joseph was taken by ambulance and then airlifted to the children’s hospital in Anchorage, Alaska. They received word that the paramedics on the helicopter were able to get a pulse and that he was breathing on his own. It took the hospital over a day to get his core temperature back. Then they battle with his body overheating and had to pack him with ice. The medical team tried to regulate his physical body the best that they could. Soon after he had to be placed on a ventilator. More test were performed and after several neurologist examined him they had to declare him braindead.

Please help me surround this family to know that they are loved. They did everything that they could to save dear sweet Joseph with this horrific accident. As they sort through the minutes, to then hours, to then days into healing I will do my best to keep you posted if there is anything that can be done to better support them through this.

With tragedies the brain will try and think of a way to have a different outcome. The brain never wants to settle at just the facts.  The brain will try to create a hypothetical option of what could or should have been done to save us from the pain and reality. Unfortunately the only reality is that this completely sucks. Every parent’s greatest fears are now Dan and Stacy’s reality.  Please help me show them support and compassion in this time of need.

Thank you for any and all support 

Devon Acou