Andrew's Fundraiser

Dear Friends and Family,

On November 21, 2024 around 11AM, I was struck by a vehicle while walking on a crosswalk, trying to get across the road in Durham, North Carolina. Luckily the driver managed to slam on their brakes, but they were going fast enough still to send me flying about ten feet away, through the air and onto the pavement and landed on my head and rolled three times, causing traumatic injuries and road rash as a result from being struck. I won’t comment further on the accident other than facts since there are legal proceedings that are ongoing since I was hit while crossing the road on a crosswalk and had entered the crosswalk when I had the walk signal.

I am grateful that the driver was able to slam on their brakes when they did or they likely would have killed me. It could have been so much worse, so I feel blessed that I am still alive to be writing this right now.

However, I have endured a massive amount of pain and suffering as a result of this accident combined with my current living situation. I was trying to tough it out and see if I could heal myself while living in a tent, in the cold winter of North Carolina, but after the last couple of weeks of frigid cold winter weather and the last couple of days filled with rainfall, leaving me soaking wet and discouraged, I have decided to reach out and ask for help.

As a result of the accident, I have a a fractured cheek bone with displacement, a large gash in my head that required stitches, a gashed ear that required stitches, painful road rash on my hands and other body parts, hematoma blood bruising on my scalp and hematoma blood bruising on my ribs. The treatment plan that I have been instructed to follow has been impossible given the fact that I am living outdoors in the cold weather in a tent, sleeping on a board (our air mattresses keep popping), and have to be active outdoors to survive with no place to rest.

As a result of the living conditions, my cheek and face (including my nose the last couple of days) pain has only worsened to the point of barely being able to talk right now. I am on a liquid diet which is difficult to maintain when I am already hungry and broke. I am supposed to keep a warm, wet rag on my face most of the day when I can, and I have been unable to do so at all given my living conditions.

My hematoma blood bruises are supposed to receive ice and rest, but have no received any of the sort and I feel like they have only worsened to the point where I can barely stand up straight. This has been absolutely so painful and attempting to sleep on a board has proved futile and I mainly toss and turn in pain all night, only catching a couple of hours of “passing out” every so often, but sometimes I may be up for a couple of days at a time in pain.

One of the hardest parts of this for me was I was interviewing for full-stack developer jobs right before this accident - I felt like I was finally going to get a good job that would get me out of my situation. Since the accident, I have struggled with constant headaches, getting migraines every other day (at least the last week and a half), and my memory doesn’t feel quite the same right now and I struggle with programming which is extremely frustrating and leaves me depressed. The lack of sleep and head pain makes me moody, depressed at times, and unable to pursue the developer jobs for the time being.

The cold weather has especially made these symptoms all worse, especially the cheek bone fracture, since that is nerve pain the cold makes it unbearable to be in the frigid cold air as much as I am.

I really was trying to avoid asking for help as much as possible and deal with this on my own as it is not anyone else’s problem but my own. I was also embarrassed to bring up my living situation as it is something that I have struggled with the last couple of years with my fiance and I’ve rather avoided people who are close to me altogether to avoid the shame I feel for the way I’ve struggled. But we have made a lot of progress due to a lot of hard work we’ve put in over the last year. I tried working at Walmart for a few months and when that showed it wouldn’t change our situation, I decided to pour myself into programming, spending about 6-10 hours a day coding, working on my freelance business, and applying/prepping for jobs as much as I can. It sucks this happened right when I felt like I was on the verge of a breakthrough.

Given my situation, it is almost impossible for us to survive with only one person able to try and make money by holding a sign (I’m too afraid of traffic right now and in too much pain to help out). I am asking for kindness and any kind of help anyone may be able to provide during this difficult time until we are able to receive any type of help from the accident case, if that does happen.

I am in currently wet, cold, and in incredible pain so I have finally come to a point where I have no choice but to ask for your help, but I do so humbly and with gratitude and sincerity. Any help would be used towards my recovery, like possibly getting a hotel room for a night if possible, eating, getting necessary medical supplies, better tent/sleeping gear, propane for our heater, etc. We are sleeping pretty rough in a tattered tent that has seen a rough hurricane season, some brutal winter weather, and the claws of our rescue cat Bean we saved from starvation a few months ago.

The hospital pushed me out the night of the accident and only sent me home with antibiotics. I have managed so far to get by on ibuprofen and tylenol, but we are running short on our supply of that and need to get more. I am trying to get back into a health provider to see if there is any other type of help they can provide for my pain, but it has been slow getting in, likely due to my huge hospital bill. Any type of help that would allow us to sleep in a room in a bed for a few nights would be so incredible - you have no idea how much that would help and how much I’d appreciate it.

I understand times are tough and that you may not be able to help - if not, I’d appreciate it if you’d share this with anyone you know who may want to help out.

Right now I have included our CashApp and Venmo as those are the ways we can really sort of receive and manage our money at the moment. I am trying to set up Stripe with my coding skills and create some type of merchandise that will entice people to support this fundraiser (whatever you want to call it) when I am not cold, wet, and in so much pain.

Thank you in advance for your help and kindness. The ways you can support me are below and you can even follow the link to a page of donation links. Thank you!

Donate on CashApp

Donate on Venmo

Support Me on Patreon