On October 30th, our dear friends John and Damielle Hieber experienced what many would consider their worst nightmare. This was no pre-Halloween trick, however. When John got home that afternoon, he opened the front door of their apartment to thick, black, plastic/electrical fire smoke. Effectively the entire apartment and almost everything in it was destroyed.
While John and Damielle were not home during the fire and therefore were not harmed, their kitty was far less lucky. After an unknown amount of smoke inhalation, surviving the night was an uncertainty, and recovering enough movement and lack of pain to be worth keeping her alive even more so. Thankfully, she survived, but John and Damielle's bank account was drained by the resulting vet bills, and the ultimate recovery will be long and require a lot more treatment.
Without insurance or a credit history, and savings wiped out by vet bills, John and Damielle are currently relying on John's parents for a place to live and day-to-day needs. That help doesn't even begin to cover the costs of recovering from a tragedy such as this.
All told, they will need money for:
- What's left of the vet bills
- A new apartment, deposits and moving expenses
- Replacing everything, including John's professional camera equipment
- Ongoing medical costs from John's post-cancer treatment and Damielle's recent injuries, which have left them strapped for cash in recent years
We appreciate any and all help you can provide. Those of us who know and love John and Damielle (and their darling kitty) want nothing more than to see them land solidly back on their feet.