Support Tammy's Family After Devastating Accident

My name is Tammy Jones and I'm in desperate need of financial assistance to help me keep a roof over my family's head during the brutally cold, snow-covered Montana winter, due to the fact that my husband was terribly injured on a construction site in Whitefish, MT on Sept 25th. We were just finishing up a siding job and we were getting ready to bring our scaffolding system (pump jacks & walkboards) to the ground, but my husband needed to re-situate one of the walkboards onto the part of the pump jacks where it sits, like he has done a thousand times before without incident. But this time, when he lifted the walkboard, the pump (which is where he had his foot) spun around (so imagine his leg is like a piece of clothing caught in the dryer). It snapped his leg and threw him off the side from approximately 30 feet or more from where we were standing. I was up there with him because we worked together. I was getting my part of the pump jacks unlocked to roll it down, but I was about 20 feet from him. I heard a loud noise and looked over, and he was falling off the top. He tried to catch himself with both arms, but it happened so fast he couldn't. But I definitely think it slowed him down tremendously, thank God. I'm watching as my husband is falling to the ground with such fear in his eyes, and there isn't anything that I can do except be horrified by the thought of what the outcome might be. I watched as my husband landed on his feet but with most of his weight on his right side. After he hit the ground (which is also less than half an inch away from concrete forms and rebar sticking straight up on the sides), he fell onto his back, rolled onto his side, and then tried to get up onto his knees so he could try to get up. All I could do was scream at him to lay still, and I was screaming for help. At this point, I'm stranded 30 feet in the air, and I can't even reach a window to crawl into so I can get down to him. I can't call 911 because my phone was inside the building we were working on. Some workers that were three buildings over heard me screaming and rushed over to help. They called 911 and helped me get down so I could go to my husband and try to keep him calm until the paramedics arrived. My husband was soaked in blood from his arms being completely shredded from trying to catch himself. 230 lbs is a lot of weight to try to catch. It was a horrific sight, and the paramedics were cutting off all of his clothing to find where all of the blood was coming from. After we arrived at the hospital and they ran a bunch of tests, the doctors and surgeons informed us that my husband has a burst fracture (broken back) around his L2, a broken leg which will require immediate surgery, and the heel on his right foot has literally disintegrated from the impact. We didn't have any savings or health insurance, and the company that we worked for did not have workers' comp insurance, so the responsibility to pay falls to the general contractor, and they are fighting it and trying to starve us out. We have two law firms that took this on for us, and thank God we didn't have to pay them anything yet. The attorneys say that it could take up to a year to get the work comp payments and all of the back pay.

My husband's income is how we paid our bills. I have been working and recently, finally got a second job after trying for months. I can't make enough money to pay our bills, and we have two teenage daughters still living at home with us. Our rent is $2,100, and thankfully one of our older daughters has been able to help us pay it until now. Our landlords know our situation, and I have even offered to let them read paperwork from the attorneys, but they won't let us stay unless the rent gets paid on time. We will be homeless without anywhere to go in the middle of a Montana winter unless we get some help. I haven't missed any payments on any of my bills in over three years, and now I'm two truck and one car payment behind, and all of my credit card payments are late, and my credit is plummeting. To add insult to injury, my car that my kids drive to school and back needs four new tires because right now it has a donut tire on, which is so dangerous. To top it all off, I can't even afford to pay my daughter's phone bill, so she's driving around on bald tires, and she couldn't even call me if she had to, which is terribly scary.

Also, she was supposed to get her braces off in September, but I can't afford to pay the remaining $3,000 now, so I don't know what to do about that. Also, she is going to graduate high school with a 4.0 at the end of May. She is very driven and goal-oriented and has decided to stay in Montana for the first four years of college, but now since my husband's accident, I can't afford to pay the $300 by February so she can get her living arrangements settled at college. She even tried emailing the college about it, asking for help, but they said they can't help with that. If I don't get my taxes done, she can't apply for the FAFSA grant. She has worked so extremely hard and has accomplished so much, and I feel like a total failure, and I am letting her completely down. I also haven't been able to order any of her senior stuff yet, and it was supposed to be ordered by December, and it's $259. Because of all the stress, her hair started falling out, and she paid for extensions with the money she made from her summer job, but now they need to be adjusted because they are halfway down her head, but I can't afford the $300. I'm also four payments behind ($600) on my storage payments, and I lost my only son four years ago, and all of my pics and videos and everything all of my children ever made me or gave me is in that storage unit. If I lose that, I will not be able to go on. I work every day and night, and I'm missing every important moment of my girls' lives, like my daughter cheering during her last year of high school, and my heart is breaking. My kids can't do anything with friends because I don't have any extra money to give them. We didn't even celebrate Christmas this year and didn't even have a tree. Thankfully, some sweet human being dropped off a few presents at our door in secret for my two girls.

Our house is freezing because we don't have any wood, and I can't afford high electric bills, so we try to only run the heaters for a little while at night. I can barely afford the necessities of life. I was barely making $1,100 a month before I finally got a second job a week and a half ago, so that's why I'm so far behind. I'm begging anyone who reads this to PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN. I'm trying to keep it together, but I don't know how much longer I can. This accident not only hurt my husband but is destroying our lives. We are supposed to have a mediation with the workers' comp and the general contractor at the end of January, so I pray to God that something is resolved then.

Thank you from our entire family for any help you care ❤️ to give.