Support Red Beard- Alex's Thumb vs The Table Saw
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As many of you know, Alex and Carolina are small business owners in Parker, CO owning and operating Red Beard's Home Services, a home remodel business serving all of Douglas County. On Friday afternoon about 45 minutes after leaving a client's house, Carolina got a phone call from Alex say that he needed help because he had hurt himself. When she asked what had happened and his only response was "it's not good" she knew immediately that they had a problem. He was asking for her to find the closest hospital from where he was working which was Elizabeth at the time. Not really having the time to wait for an ambulance, Alex drove himself 40 minutes to the Sky Ridge emergency room.
By this point you are probably wondering what happened. Well, Alex's left thumb lost a battle with a table saw while he was cutting the 2nd to last piece of shiplap to put up in a client's bathroom. At Sky Ridge they were able to do a temporary stitch job to reattach the lost piece of his thumb but had to search the Denver metro area for a specialized surgeon to hopefully permanently reattach it asap. After hours of waiting, he was transferred to Denver Health by ambulance and rushed into emergency surgery. After a 4 hour surgery, Carolina got a call for the dr saying that they had put him back together but there was going to be a long road ahead of them.
He is staying in the ICU at Denver Health for constant supervision to make sure his body will not reject the reattachment. 3-4 days in the ICU then 4-6 weeks of healing in a cast and months of physical therapy are not very conducive to being able to go back to work and hang drywall or lay tile, or add trim work or build custom pieces for their clients. (Update: as of Saturday night! Jan 30 the doctors are not happy with the way his thumb is looking and he is scheduled to go back into surgery on Sunday the 31st to try and reopen the capillaries for proper blood flow. Is they find that during surgery it is not cooperating, they will have to move forward with a partial amputation.) (Update: Feb 5 - Alex is home and is feeling well. We have a followup appointment next week to see how the reattachment is holding up. We know for sure that if everything goes well he will have to have at least 1 more surgery) (Update: Feb 25 - Alex is still out of work and has not yet has had next surgery scheduled. We went in for a check up last week and the doctor said he saw a small improvement but this is an EXTREMELY slow process. We still don't know how much of his thumb he is going to be able to keep. His next appointment is on March 11th. If you can imagine, the guys that lives for working with his hands is so ready to get things back to normal but at this point we don't even know what normal will look like anymore. It has been gut wrenching having to turn business away at this time because he physically can't do anything with his left hand. We need that income now more than ever.)
Alex and Carolina have already been struggling to pay the bills as it is, during Covid. Having to call debtors and their landlord asking for a little more time. We all know that it isn't as glamorous as it seems to own your own business especially when business is slow and you don't have that nest egg to fall back on because you threw everything you had into your business and you don't have insurance because you're self employed.
Accidents don't ever happen at the perfect time and this one sure hasn't. Have you ever been in a position that you don't feel like things could get much worse? This is exactly how they are feeling now. Without Alex being able to head back to work for a while and Carolina's new real estate business having come to a halt during Covid and now this new hefty bill added to the pile, they sure could use some help. (Rent would be due in 2 days wouldn't it?)
Alex is doing nothing to but apologizing to Carolina for what is happening and let's face it, there is nothing to apologize for. He was out there working his ass off making an honest living when a freak accident happened.
When Carolina asked to hospital staff about estimated charges for the his time at Sky Ridge, the ambulance ride to Denver Health, the surgery, the ICU stay etc. all they can tell her right now is that it's going to be "pricey" and she may want to seek some help. So here we are. We hate doing this but we really need the help. Any little bit would be super helpful. Thank you for taking the time to hear our story and thank you so much in advance.
By this point you are probably wondering what happened. Well, Alex's left thumb lost a battle with a table saw while he was cutting the 2nd to last piece of shiplap to put up in a client's bathroom. At Sky Ridge they were able to do a temporary stitch job to reattach the lost piece of his thumb but had to search the Denver metro area for a specialized surgeon to hopefully permanently reattach it asap. After hours of waiting, he was transferred to Denver Health by ambulance and rushed into emergency surgery. After a 4 hour surgery, Carolina got a call for the dr saying that they had put him back together but there was going to be a long road ahead of them.
He is staying in the ICU at Denver Health for constant supervision to make sure his body will not reject the reattachment. 3-4 days in the ICU then 4-6 weeks of healing in a cast and months of physical therapy are not very conducive to being able to go back to work and hang drywall or lay tile, or add trim work or build custom pieces for their clients. (Update: as of Saturday night! Jan 30 the doctors are not happy with the way his thumb is looking and he is scheduled to go back into surgery on Sunday the 31st to try and reopen the capillaries for proper blood flow. Is they find that during surgery it is not cooperating, they will have to move forward with a partial amputation.) (Update: Feb 5 - Alex is home and is feeling well. We have a followup appointment next week to see how the reattachment is holding up. We know for sure that if everything goes well he will have to have at least 1 more surgery) (Update: Feb 25 - Alex is still out of work and has not yet has had next surgery scheduled. We went in for a check up last week and the doctor said he saw a small improvement but this is an EXTREMELY slow process. We still don't know how much of his thumb he is going to be able to keep. His next appointment is on March 11th. If you can imagine, the guys that lives for working with his hands is so ready to get things back to normal but at this point we don't even know what normal will look like anymore. It has been gut wrenching having to turn business away at this time because he physically can't do anything with his left hand. We need that income now more than ever.)
Alex and Carolina have already been struggling to pay the bills as it is, during Covid. Having to call debtors and their landlord asking for a little more time. We all know that it isn't as glamorous as it seems to own your own business especially when business is slow and you don't have that nest egg to fall back on because you threw everything you had into your business and you don't have insurance because you're self employed.
Accidents don't ever happen at the perfect time and this one sure hasn't. Have you ever been in a position that you don't feel like things could get much worse? This is exactly how they are feeling now. Without Alex being able to head back to work for a while and Carolina's new real estate business having come to a halt during Covid and now this new hefty bill added to the pile, they sure could use some help. (Rent would be due in 2 days wouldn't it?)
Alex is doing nothing to but apologizing to Carolina for what is happening and let's face it, there is nothing to apologize for. He was out there working his ass off making an honest living when a freak accident happened.
When Carolina asked to hospital staff about estimated charges for the his time at Sky Ridge, the ambulance ride to Denver Health, the surgery, the ICU stay etc. all they can tell her right now is that it's going to be "pricey" and she may want to seek some help. So here we are. We hate doing this but we really need the help. Any little bit would be super helpful. Thank you for taking the time to hear our story and thank you so much in advance.
Organizer
Carolina Stovall
Organizer
Parker, CO