Support Chase's Long Road to Recovery

Tuesday, June 3rd our family received the gut wrenching call that my sweet big brother, Chase, was in a horrific jobsite accident. Without knowing the details in full, we gathered together as a family as we waited the excruciating 2 hours as he was slowly being extracted from the trench he was trapped in and flown by Life Flight to our local trauma hospital.

We watched as his helicopter landed and he was wheeled in - I’ll never forget shouting through tears how much we loved him and that we’d be here waiting for him - praying he’d hear us, desperate to provide him any sort of comfort as we had no idea the extent of his injuries or how he ended up in this situation.

As we settled into a small corner of the emergency room, we learned of his life threatening injuries and how he sustained them. While he was in a finishing laying pipe in a 10ft-12ft trench, the bucket of the excavator filled with gravel, weighting well over thousands of pounds, released from the excavator itself and fell on top of him as he attempted to flee - crushing entirely the lower half of his body, not only once but twice.

The next few hours were excruciating as we dropped to our knees and prayed he’d stay with us - we learned more and more about the gravity of the injuries and how completely life altering this will be for him. After getting the internal bleeding under control, we were able to see him. This wasn’t the “him” we know and loved - it was a shell of him. Bruised, full of dirt and peacefully asleep. Holding his hand, brushing his hair, whispering in his ear in hopes he’d miraculously hear us and we’d wake up from this nightmare.

After numerous days and numerous surgeries, our guy was finally able to wake up. The journey he has ahead of him is going to be VERY LONG and physically and emotionally strenuous. While he will be able to walk again eventually, it is going to be a fight to get him there. Relearning body functions, regaining strength, processing this accident as a whole is going to take tremendous help and we are so proud to be here with him along the way.

The courage, strength, bravery and determination this man has is beyond words. He is a brother, a father and a fiance’, a son and SO MUCH MORE - we are going to work hard to get our guy back. Any support we receive is greatly appreciated ❤️

https://www.kgw.com/article/news/regional/southwest-washington/crews-working-on-trench-rescue-in-woodland/283-861554dc-5f23-4292-8dbc-7305166d360e

UPDATE!

First and foremost - I speak for our entire family when I say we are wildly grateful for the support we’ve received the last almost 3 weeks. We wouldn’t have been able to manage showing up for Chase the way we’ve been able to without it.

We’ve held off on an update for none other than the fact that nothing about this journey has been linear. The last 3 days have been the most consistent we’ve had, thus far. The good news is our guy is in incredible spirits given the circumstances. The kindness he has shown to his care team, despite being in an immense about of pain is admirable and brings tears to my eyes. In regards to his condition, we are stable and healing. He has been trying his hardest to work through the emotions knowing that the life he knew 3 weeks ago is over and we will be embarking on something new and difficult. While he has full range of motion in his entire upper body aside from a fractured back and ribs (which is an actual MIRACLE in itself - one we will never stop being thankful for), the lower half of his body sustained significant injuries and he will be out of commission for the forseeable future. The largest factor in this is his severely broken pelvis. As mentioned in the original post - he WILL in fact be able to walk again…eventually. His toes can wiggle and his feet can move and that’s all the progress we need to see right now. It will be a great deal of time before we can get him on his feet again, but if you know anything about this man, it is he is resilient and a FIGHTER. I know we can’t keep him down for long.

As for internally, he has a very LARGE amount of damage that we are still working through on diagnosing and managing. He currently has very big hematomas that they are waiting to subside before they’re able to really dig deep into this. When we have any sort of update/plan, I will update accordingly. This has been the part that has shifted the most. Almost everyday it has been something new and worrisome. We’ve had 2 procedures on this specifically, with one more scheduled this week. What we do know is that he will be having a fair amount of reconstructive surgeries down the road, when his pelvis is healed enough to do so.

In regards to the accident itself, if his instincts hadn’t been to move away from the rock sprinkling on his hard hat, there is no doubt that he wouldn’t be here with us today as the bucket would have fallen directly on top of his head. He is truly a miracle. We are counting our lucky stars that he is here with us today.

Again, thank you all for riding this wave with us. It will be a long one - but we are ready to carry him to the finish line. He is completely blown away by the support he has received from behind the scenes and it’s something he never take for granted ❤️