A little more than a year ago, our father / husband / friend / brother, Paul Buckman had a horrific accident. He fell in his bedroom and on the way down, hit his head on the wall with such force that his neck snapped back and was fractured at the C4-C5 level. At the hospital, it was discovered that his neck and spine had compressed, leaving him unable to move/feel anything below his neck. He was given a diagnosis of quadriplegic. As an active tennis player and golfer, this was devastating. After a lifetime of working with only a few years into semi-retirement, it was heartbreaking.
After many hospitals and a few short stays in rehab (his insurance didn’t allow him to stay longer), he can now raise his arms. However, he still cannot open his fist or move his legs on his own.
Our hope would be that by now he would be able to transport himself from his bed to a wheelchair or toilet on his own, but, his disrupted therapy throughout the past year due to weeks-long hospital stays have made it impossible to get any traction on consistency. He works very hard with a physical therapist when we can afford one on our own, but those visits are few and far between.
Since he cannot transport himself into or out of a wheelchair, or use his core to even sit up in a traditional chair, he uses an electric chair that simply allows him to recline.
His sole caretaker is our dear mother/stepmother Carol Buckman, as most of his family does not live in New Jersey. We send money when we can to help with daycare… but it’s not enough to buy or even put towards the one thing Carol wants: a wheel-chair accessible van. She wants him to go places with her, feel the outside, see family members, try to live as normal a life as possible.
Since our hand crank Hoyer Lift is also not transportable, they only way to get him from one place to another is a specialized van. We have tried to use our local para-transit, but it is never available when needed and extremely unreliable when it is.
Not only is this request for our newly disabled father but more importantly, it’s for extremely hard working, selfless Carol. She changes him, feeds him, cares for him and loves him in addition to holding down two jobs!!
Goal: Our first goal is to raise money to help support the purchase of a used wheel chair accessible van and other necessary items not covered by insurance. Paul also requires full-time care and Carol needs help in caring for Paul.
The goal is to raise $25,000 by Feb 14th, 2018.
For more information, please contact Help Hope Live at 800.642.8399.
Thanks for any help that you can offer,
From Paul and his family
