Tony Retherford's Recovery Fund

On July 1st, 2017 our family hosted the fifth annual Retherford Family Fireworks extravaganza. Tony is always an active participant in these shows. This year, unfortunately, did not have a good outcome.  The fireworks show went off without an glitches and we thought we had another successful year behind us. About 20 to 30 minutes after the show was over, Tony noticed some of the debris was on fire and went down to put the fire out. The fire was successfully put out and that is when Tony decided to start cleaning up the other firework debris.  When Tony reached over one of the 3 inch mortar tubes that had not went off during the show, he jarred the tube causing it to ignite and explode into his right arm.  Tony was aircared to University Hospital in Cincinnati for severe burns. He had two large burns on his forearm and bicep of his right arm. These burns required surgery the following day to clean out the dead tissue and place a wound vac to help increase circulation to the tissue to promote healing. The burn on his bicep require tissue to be removed all the way to the bone, which entailed removing part of his bicep muscle.  Tony still has multiple surgeries in his future to continue to clean out the dead tissue and skin grafting to allow the wounds to heal. Tony was really lucky in comparison to what could have happened and we are lucky to have had such a quick response from the Hanover Township EMT's to get Tony the emergency care he needed. Unfortunately, Tony does not have health insurance or any sort of paid sick leave from his job. Not only will Tony have enormous amounts of medical bills from aircare, surgery, hospital stay, and long-term follow-ups/wound-care treatments, he also will have no income at all to pay for his day-to-day bills. We are asking for any sort of donations to help Tony get his medical bills paid and get him back on his feet again!