Fundraiser for a young firefighter needing a knee replacement

http://www.gofundme.com/nfd202

This young man has had a rough past few months, any help would be greatly appreciated by he and his family.

At age 14 Adam joined his local volunteer fire department's junior firefighter program, he trained with the department and began to learn about the fire service. At a training meeting in 2002 Adam was injured, he tore the cartilage in his left knee, surgery was done and then the right knee tore.

Last year he responded to a call of a child not breathing, he was only 1/2 a mile away and was first on scene. The 6 year old girl had no pulse and was very blue, he began CPR and never stopped until the ALS unit took over and the girl survived, that is the best reward of his life, that she pulled through.

Another of the high points of his career was in October of 2006 when his engine company provided fire protection for President George W. Bush on a visit to Tuskegee, AL. Marine One landed at historic Moton Field home of the Tuskegee Airmen. As a gratitude of appreciation the Secret Service awarded his crew with a Secret Service pin.

Over the last 10 years he has had 7 knee surgeries, removing all the cartilage in both knees, in 2007 he finished EMT school and had to have his 5th knee surgery because of a tear he sustained while loading a patient into an ambulance during his NREMT clinical rotations. He is now waiting on donner tissue to relive some of the chronic pain he lives in everyday. Without insurance it will be tough for him to pay all the medical bills from the surgery and has been out of work since March 26, 2012 and can not return because of his disability. He is a supervisor for Home Depot, on medical leave which will expire in a few months and Home Depot can choose not to keep him on. Each donation will go to medical bills, medication and to an extremely high insurance bill because of a pre existing condition. As of right now he is not able to even respond to a call due to his knees, which is devastating to him because he loves to serve his community.

Please share this.
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No disrespect intended here, but why isn't the Fire Dept's Injury Insurance covering this surgery? If your description of the events is true, the injuries were sustained in the line of duty. The VFD's insurance should be covering all of this, and workman's comp should be covering wage losses- unless if you are in one of those states where you dont get workmans comp as a volunteer firefighter, which if is the case you are insane for volunteering without, but thats a different argument for a different time.

EDIT: just re-read and saw something about a pre-existing condition. Was this pre-existing condition aggrivated by fire/ems activities and if so, why did he choose to participate, and/or why did the VFD allow him to participate if he was clearly in danger of aggrivating the condition?

I hope you get your surgery dude, but if you think I'm going to blindly send you money for a condition that happens to damn near 85% of FF's everywhere, you're mistaken. It was a nice try though.