July 20, 2025 was your average day. We had Sunday dinner, excitedly planning what to pack for our upcoming family vacation to Maine, 2 days later. After dinner, my dad decided to take a ride on the motorcycle he had gotten only a few weeks prior. Shortly after leaving the house, he came to a sharp corner where he panicked and made the mistake of hitting the gas instead of the brake, resulting in him crashing into a ditch on the side of the road. His injuries included broken orbital bones on the right side of his face, and a severely dislocated left knee. He was brought to a local hospital where they put his knee back into place, however he had to be transferred out of state to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center for additional medical treatment. He has had two blood transfusions, surgery to place an external fixator on his leg to keep his bones in place, and a surgery on his face to place a plate in his cheek bone and to clean out the broken fragments of bone. His future treatment includes another surgery to remove the external fixator and to re-attach ligaments in his knee that had been torn, and a transfer to an inpatient rehabilitation center which will also be out of state in New Hampshire, to regain strength. 

I am the only family my dad has in Vermont aside from my husband and in-laws, so I have been and will continue to be his primary support system during this. I have been driving 1 hour 40 minutes to and from the hospital, multiple times each week, trying to still work when I can between visits. 

In addition to the cost of gas and current and future medical expenses, my dad’s bike was towed and cost just over $900 to get back. Regarding our Maine trip, I made multiple attempts to get either a refund or our dates transferred for the air BNB we were supposed to stay at, however the owners declined to transfer our dates, and a refund was not an option, leaving us with a loss amount of $2,396. 

My dad has a very long road of recovery ahead of him, and we are so appreciative of anyone who is able to help by donating, or sharing. Every $1 and every share is helpful.