Help Laurie Jones pay for care after her horrible accident

Our good friend, Laurie Jones, was in a horrific car accident on May 7th in Port Townsend. Her car was hit by a garbage truck traveling at more than 50 miles per hour. Her pelvis was crushed in 4 places, both her collar bone and five ribs were broken as well as suffering a concussion and a damaged aorta.

She was helicoptered to Harborview Hospital in Seattle where she stayed for 2.5 weeks in acute care. She was then released to a rehab center in Port Townsend where she is slowly recovering. The doctors told her she was lucky to be alive.

While she suffered major broken bones, her heart was also broken. Her sweet dog, Stella, was killed upon impact in the accident.

Needless to say, this has been hugely traumatic for Laurie and all of those who care about her. She is soon to be discharged from the rehab center and sent home.

Laurie lives alone and has no one to give her the kind of care she needs including cooking, cleaning, running errands, helping her maneuver around and making sure she is safe. She needs to hire a caregiver out of her own pocket.

Laurie is on a fixed income and cannot afford to do this. Medicare will not pay for this nor will any of her secondary insurance.

She has estimated that she will need at least 5 hours a day @ $40 an hour for at least a month. Right now we estimate that cost to be $7200 which includes a person to possible stay overnight. In addition, her daughter Hollis, a college student, will be flying up to care for her mom the first few days. Her expenses will be about $1500 for roundtrip airfare and rental car. So she will need a total of $8700.

She is very grateful for anything you can give to help her get through this difficult time. We are all rooting for a speedy recovery and to see our “ New Orleans” maven back and sassy as ever.