Jorge Padron Recovery Fund

Jorge Padron was in a serious and life-changing accident on July 19th, 2019. Thank you so much for your support so far;  we appreciate you and express our deepest gratitude. Welcome to his recovery page!


Erik and Katrina, Jorge’s older brother and sister-in-law in Colorado, have navigated every single part of his medical care, insurance, accident aftermath, and housing for Michigan family. They’ve done this with wisdom and grace.  


We all aspire to find the love that Rosa has for her son and the humble spirit she has for each blessing she found in this turmoil.  Her gratitude for every gesture of kindness from others in each moment of heartbreak for her is inspiring.  


For those of you waiting to hear what happened to Jorge and how he is doing, thank you for your patience.  The first week was so intense and scary that we did not know what to say or what we needed. His good friend, Skyler did his best to keep friends from Michigan updated.  


Jorge lives in Evergreen, Colorado. On July 18, 2019, Jorge was working a shift at his serving position and left late.  At about 1:15 AM on July 19th Jorge veered off the road into trees just 50 feet past his driveway. The crash occurred out of the visual line of sight. He was unconscious and he was not found for eight hours.  


Around 9:30 am a teenage neighbor boy found him and emergency vehicles came to the location.  This alerted Erik. Erik went out to see what happened and found it to be his brother. Jorge was removed by the jaws of life and still unconscious.  Jorge started his transport to the hospital in the ambulance but aero med took him the remainder of the way to St. Anthony’s hospital in Denver.  


Erik and Katrina’s truth was that they did not know if Jorge would survive.  His injuries were severe including a head injury. They made it to St. Anthony shortly after the helicopter with Jorge and in some ways, were relieved to learn he was in ICU, at least he was alive.  


Information did not come in an organized way in the days following. Jorge has moderate brain damage.  His MRI showed brain shearing and bruising. This means tearing and broken blood vessel bleeding. Following a closed head injury, the first 24-72 hours are critical as brain swelling can occur and drastically change outcomes for the worse.  Fortunately, Jorge did not have any brain swelling.  


His C6 is fractured, meaning the sixth vertebrae in his neck cracked.  We are grateful to report that he is not a quadriplegic. He will be in a collar for 12 weeks. His jaw was broken and required surgery.  We are also grateful they successfully completed that surgery without needing to wire his jaw shut for twelve weeks. The left index finger was broken and so badly mangled that there was a question of amputation for some days.  A hand surgeon was able to do surgery on it and time will tell what kind of use he will find with it again.


Jorge did not have much ability to use memory or speak in the first 5-6 days after the accident.  If he was pressed hard to answer a question he would try without much success. His speech was very slurred.  He knew his name and recognized his family and friends that would visit. He could absorb one to three sentences.  He did not know the year. He had a whiteboard that reminded him of his location and the year. It became evident that Jorge did not have any short-term memory.  He could not recall anyone visiting after they left.   


As is very common with brain injury, Jorge eventually became very agitated and said some pretty nonsensical things. He needed to be restrained to his bed to keep him safe from further injury and to keep his feeding tube in.


After about a week, Jorge made solid strides. He was able to swallow without aspirating.  He  calmed down a lot and was saying things that made more sense, even though they are were not always accurate.  For example, he told  people he just gone to a concert in Detroit. That sounded feasible, but it’s was not true.    He was able to move to a standard room out of ICU and then to a rehab part of the hospital instead of the general hospital population.  


We are finding hope in Jorge’s current team having a treatment plan that is planning for him to leave inpatient rehab from Colorado August 27 and transfering to Michigan.  The family will be finding outpatient treatment for him and he will be moving in with his mom, Rosa.  


Rosa is beginning unpaid FMLA next week, driving to Colorado to care for Jorge, and then driving him home to Holland, Michigan.  She is going to be his primary caregiver. Both Jorge and Rosa will be out of work and accruing many additional expenses.  


We know there are so many ways you can bring hope to Jorge as he faces a really extensive recovery.  It is not always through financial gifts. We will be providing you with other meaningful ways to provide support for TBI (traumatic brain injury) recovery.  We will also provide you with tangible support opportunities that come up along the way, like rides to different therapy and doctor appointments. Prayers, well-wishes, cards, social media posts help Jorge feel supported!  Family shares these with Jorge since he isn’t ready to have access to his phone on his own yet. 


For those of you who are able to offer financial support for the cost of living and supplies during time off work, it is very much appreciated. 


With Love, Gratitude & Many Blessing!


Katie, Erik & Katrina Padron