Roel’s Update:

Please take a moment to read this unfortunate accident to one of our fire fighters who worked with CalFire in Tuolumne County.

Roel was a first year fire fighter Lead on a fire hand-crew of 16 crew members. His first day on the crew was in the early summer of 2023 and worked in extreme summer weather conditions, Roel was determined to be his best and has a great work ethic.

Fire season came to an end on 12/17/23 and the seasonal firefighters were laid off for winter. Roel was on his way to go home to Bakersfield to be with his wife and children which includes a 3 week infant and a set of twins that are 17 months old; unfortunately Roel only made it 20 minutes down the road. Roel had a horrific & violent single vehicle accident that caused him to have multiple spinal injuries. After he was transported to Modesto Memorial Hospital the doctors preformed emergency surgery to his spinal cord. This accident left Roel to be paralyzed.

Roel spent 2 weeks in the ICU while accompanied by fellow CalFire staff members and family. Roel was recently transferred to Santa Clara Medical Center to begin his long journey of rehabilitation, therapy and to begin learning how to live his life without the use of his extremities.

Roel is a colleague of a large fire family, a leader on his fire crew, a friend to many in the TCU unit. Roel has a big family to support, a wife that loves him and he has children that depend on him. He is loved to no end and he and his family can really benefit from your help.

From Roel’s wife Dylani:

Roel is a very involved dad who loves being around for all his kids. He goes to every practice if he is home and goes to all of the kids games, and wrestling tournaments. He is so supportive and is such a GREAT dad, the kids come first before anything except work, lol. Firefighting for CalFire was not only his dream but a goal he had set for himself and he was persistent, he never let anybody or anything steer him away from that dream.

I want to thank CalFire, family, friends and strangers for all of the help that our family has received and for the continued prayers.

Dylani