On December 11, 2010, 18 year old Tyler Hogue’s life changed. While riding his motorcycle, a truck made an illegal turn in front of him, causing Tyler to crash into the truck. He was lucky enough to be in the 5% of people who make it to the hospital from this type of accident. After being rushed to UCI, he went through 16 hours of surgery, repairing and inserting two rods to reconnect C1 & C2 Vertebras in his broken neck and two rods were inserted in his upper back to repair the two damage vertebras, which left his spinal cord badly damaged. Today Tyler is a T5 & T6 Paraplegic. He also had a badly broken left wrist and spent 7 hours in surgery to repair it. He has lost quite a bit of his upper body strength. He spent one month in UCI and one month in Long Beach Memorial Rehabilitation Center. He will have to have months of out-patient rehabilitation.
His turn around has been a blessing; however the family is now faced with additional medical needs, plus their home needs a complete remodel to make it handicap accessible. We have family and friends who are ready to do the construction work, but are in dire need of materials.
His sister and her boyfriend sold everything, gave up their jobs to come back out here from Florida, so she can take care of her brother. Right now he will need 24 hour care. His mother has spent the best part of the last 20 years taking care of his dad. Now she is faced with a new challenge.
If you, your company or club would like to help the Hogue family, renovate their home to make it handicap accessible for Tyler, and make more room for his sister to stay. All donations or fund raisers would be greatly appreciated.
