One of our OWN needs help!
 

I am challenging everyone to help one of our own, SKYMANGS, The S10 Swap How To sticky thread author was severely injured in a fire at his shop. A detail of the events can be found here There is a GoFundMe page setup to help him and his family with expenses. Please help me by spreading the word. I ask that you incorporated the link http://gofundme.com/c49h5mjx8 into the signature, that way it automatically is posted on any thread you have replied on. Please help spread the word and link up your signature to "SKYMANGS" GoFund me link and let's help one of our own.

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

I'm up for that, copied/pasted your sig line into mine.

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

Go to the gofundme link, scroll down a page or so, look at those two boys. Imagine what they're going through right now. I'll bet their world revolves around their Dad. At least he's been pulled out of the medically induced coma he was in. I wonder if they can even see him yet.

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

Only know him from posts here. My BIL got burned pretty bad in front of my two daughters so I can relate to Chris's situation. 54K members on the site, lets say 10% on this board, just a little from each of us will hit the goal and much more.

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

We can do it.

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

Members: 137,634

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

Thank you all for whatever help you can provide.

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

Appreciate all the donations, we are about a 1/3 of the way to the $5k goal, please keep this circulating so we can get there. With 57k forum members certainly we can raise the funds!

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

Thank you to all who have donated! As you can see we cracked the $2000 mark and we are now almost halfway to the $5000 goal. Please keep spreading the word so we can help Chris out, donations can be made here or clinking the link in my signature. Additionally if you would please insert the Chris' link into your signature so it will show up on all the threads you reply on.

Chris has been in ICU almost a month now, here is the latest update from his wife.

By Jennifer Klapp — Aug 3, 2015 3:34pm

Chris is doing well, not much has really changed. He is off the ventilator during the day, night they put him on because of his sleep apnea. He is aware of the comings and goings in his room and will slightly respond to questions, by shrugs or shaking of head, or blinking. He is moving a little bit, I am sure his legs and arms feel as though they weigh a ton. He is still on dialysis, but is putting out urine, so they are slowly kicking back on. They are worried that he may have pneumonia again, but they watching. He is slowly getting to the point to were he will be able to have visitors, just need to get him out of ICU portion of the burn center.

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

I am quite disturbed more people have not donated.

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

We just have to keep spreading the word!

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

any way to do paypal? don't want gofundme to have my credit card info

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

If you want to send me a check, I make the donation for you on the gofundme site in your name. PM me and I will give you my address.

thanks,

Shawn

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

This is horrible. I actually signed up to this website just to get in touch with him to hopefully build my 52 I just picked up. I hope he's making progress and his family is doing okay as well.

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

I talked to Chris' wife today, and received more info or more of their beat guess until Chris can tell us. He was finishing up the 54 for Bob R (pics on his page). Working on the filler neck or the fuel door and there was a flash fire that totally consumed the inside of the shop. I will post pics later but it is bad. Chris was trapped inside the shop for a while, but at some point got out and was able to call 911 before he passed out outside.

His burns are all above the waist, mostly on his arms and around his left ear. But the good news is that several of the burns are starting to heal on their own. If he can just fight the infection they are hopeful.

By Jennifer Klapp — 9 hours ago


This week started on a good note, with Chris really responding to questions and moving his head and limbs. But things took a turn for the worst on Tuesday morning. Chris spiked a 106 temperature and it took all day to get it down to 101. So Michael and I stayed the night with Chris that night and it stayed down all night, so home we went at 5:30am on Wednesday. Wednesday was a quiet day with a temperature still hanging around but not going over 102. Thursday was a quiet day with nothing real big happening, which is okay because Tuesday was quit exciting. Through the week Chris's urine output has gotten better. So this morning when I was visiting the kidney doctor was around and told me that if he continues on this up slope that they will stop dialysis and take out the stint for the dialysis. Tomorrow he is going to have a feeding tube put into his gut to make it easier on him. Right now the feeding tube is going through the nose, so I am sure it is a bit bothersome.

Chris is slowly climbing the hill of recovery and the prayers and good vibes are greatly appreciated.

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

Praying everyday for Chris' healing... hang in there !

O Father of mercies and God of all comfort, our only help in time of need: We humbly beseech thee to behold, visit, and relieve thy sick servant Chris for whom our prayers are desired.

Look upon him with the eyes of thy mercy; comfort him with a sense of thy goodness; restore him to health, and enable him to lead the residue of his life in thy glory.

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

Thanks for the update, gas flashing is the worst. Good to hear the extent is less than what I imagined. Sounds like his body is fighting well. Prayers sent.

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

Amen

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

So for those of you who have asked for some photos of Chris' shop here they are. As you can see it is basically a complete loss. Two trucks destroyed, Chris son's TF truck and a customer Bob R. Currently we are sitting at about $2500 in donations, so please lets get the word and help if we can! Donate Here!

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

Being an architect that has had to walk into buildings looking like that I do not see a complete loss. I see a mess that needs cleaned up and lots of stuff damaged or totaled. But the building can be fixed and even the trucks while somewhat burned are not ready for the scrapper yet. I do not know the owners situation, but I have a fire theft policy on my un-registered truck that costs $16 a year thru my main auto policy. The structure insurance should cover the structural damage and the contents under the personal property provision up to a limit. On mine I have a rider since my tools are worth more than the basic policy limit. It will take the insurance companies time to go thru the process, on commercial building the average is 12-18 months to process the claim. Not an easy task but I have been involved in bringing buildings in much worse shape back to life.

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

Here is an update on Chris from his wife:


By Jennifer Klapp — Aug 15, 2015 9:10pm


Chris is doing well this week. His dialysis catheter was removed on Wednesday. He has still had a slight fever, but keeping down the upper 90's to 101. He tracks you with his eyes and tries to talk to you, but gets very frustrated when you can't figure out what he is trying to tell you. But the doctors are happy with his progress. The burns are healing well and the two places that they will have to do some reconstruction on they have vacuum packed right now. This procedure will cause the body to send extra blood to those areas to help stimulate growth on it is own. Next week he should be getting a feeding tube placed in the gut and removed from his nose.

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

Jennifer posted another update

Busy week

By Jennifer Klapp — 49 minutes ago

this week has started off busy, in the aspect of Chris being rolled off to here and there and everywhere. Yesterday he went for a CT scan and today he is going to three different places, one being MRI. Right now they are putting in a filter to stop blood clots from going to the lungs. Later he is going to go down to have a drain tube or re put in to get some fluid off the lungs. Tomorrow or Thursday he is going to surgery for skin grafts on elbow and maybe hand. We meet Dr. Grossmen on VTC yesterday , a meeting about what they are going to do tomorrow or Thursday.

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

Let's see if we can get this ball rolling again. We need about $1900 to get the $5000 goal. Please share this and lets help out Chris. He is making some progress but is still facing a long recovery battle. Please donate here: http://gofundme.com/c49h5mjx8

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

I'm in, but money is tight since my sudden and unplanned retirement. Anybody else able to sweeten the pot a little?

Re: One of our OWN needs help!
 

Updated from Chris' Wife. We still need about $2k to hit the $5k goal

By Jennifer Klapp — Aug 27, 2015 10:45am


So naturally things have changed since the beginning of the week. He is no longer having the skin flap done until they can get this infection in and around his lungs resolved. So tomorrow Chris will be having surgery to have the fluid that developed on the outside of his lungs removed. Then in a couple of weeks once infection is not a worry they will do the skin flap on his elbow.

Every day he is becoming more aware of everything around him. Yesterday I got to tell him about what has happened since he has been in the hospital. How there was a time when we didn't know if he was going to make it through the night. It was a little hard and I don't know how much he understood. Probably more than I believe he understood.

Thank you for all the support and prayers that you all have been sending our direction.