On September 7th of 2024, my son was experiencing a medical situation. I had taken him to the hospital in Carlisle and had requested a CT scan, but they chose to do an ultrasound of his gallbladder. They couldn't find anything wrong with his gallbladder, so they sent him home with Zofran and Omeprazole.

In the meantime, my husband and I took our youngest to a soccer game and a birthday party. During the birthday party, we got a phone call from my son's fiancée, who was pregnant with his son at the time. She said that she thought it might be his appendix and we needed to go back to the hospital. I discussed it with my son, and we thought that he could make the 10-minute drive to come get me so I could take him to another hospital for a second opinion. He never made it to me. He had a medical blackout at the wheel and hit a telephone pole on her side while driving my van. His fiancée and the baby did not survive.

He was taken to Holy Spirit Hospital where they discovered that he had severe stenosis of the celiac artery. Between the fact that 25% of celiacs do have blackouts, he also could have potentially blacked out from the pain alone. He had been vomiting all morning and was also very dehydrated and exhausted. He is a medical marijuana patient and used his prescribed medication before bed for his anxiety. His blood was taken at the hospital and there was a presence, but it indicated anywhere from several hours before to a day and a half before.

At the end of January, he was arrested and they are charging him with vehicular homicide under the influence. He was very obviously not under the influence of any drugs and it was specifically caused by a medical issue. We are in the last ones to ask anyone for anything. We have spent our lives helping other people whenever and however we can, but when it comes to ourselves, we do everything we can to avoid burdening anyone else. We don't have a choice this time. We cannot afford the type of legal representation that it's going to take to get these charges dismissed. He loves her and the baby with everything in him. The baby's due date was on February 13th. It's bad enough that he has to relive the worst day of his life and be blamed for it, but the potential of also going to jail and ruining the rest of his future is not an option for us. We can't let that happen. She wouldn't want that to happen. He's right so hard for this. We would not ask if there was any other option. So I'm asking you, please stand beside us on this if you can financially. We can't do this on our own. Thank you. -The Armolt family.

Update: the preliminary hearing was rescheduled to April 10th so that we have more time to obtain private legal counsel and raise the funds we need for that.