I am the man who lost everything that I had worked for -
November 20th, 2009.

I was roasted - with burning oil running off my hat - running down
my face, shoulders, back and left arm and hand.

Burning my scalp with 3rd degree spot or oil drop burns,
My face with 2nd and 3rd degree burns and my left hand with 3rd degree burns.   
Much of which now has healed ...
or at least had become repaired and has not impaired my ability to type this page ...

But more importantly ... I lost my repair shop - which belonged
to the Hightower family of Midway, WV ...

and the accumulated tools of more than 30 years.   ...

No - the building was not insurable - an older wooden structure
with a wood/coal stove used for heat - on the floor of one side
of a single stall work area

The building was a total loss.
The people who called themselves "helping me" ...
Saved very little ... Threw away what was not valuable to them ...

Some of that which was salvageable  and could have used by my family ...
just disappeared ... as for the undamaged inventory was being removed for "safe storage."
Some of it was brought to my home ... but what the helpers wanted for themselves ... went to their homes.

But, if you have read this far ... you probably already know that ... without my telling it so.

I do need to express my thanks to Phillip, David, Paul and Toney for helping to do
the cleanup that did happen so quickly.  Without them doing the good they did ...
It would still be a burned out mess - instead of just needing to have the piles of
crushed cinderblock now carried away.

http://www.register-herald.com/archivesearch/local_story_324230752.html

So, today ...
I am healing ...
 

Facing the reality of having to pay for the building,
For 2 vehicles that were burned to ashes,

(1 - which the fire department could have simply pulled out of harms way ...
But chose to watch it burn ... laughing about it all ... as if it was a social outing.)

For the $ 18,000 plus costs of the helicopter ride that
Blue Cross / Blue Shield will not pay.
And for many thousands of dollars of tools and
diagnostic equipment that I had purchased over the
years ... just to be able to competently be able to
service today's modern automobiles.

All that was there is now at the landfill.

I lost it all.            Would you help our family?     
  
nov20thfire @ gmail.com

My church and it's members have helped
all they can ...
 

And I am grateful for all that they have done to
help Carol and our family.

Today - I am simply asking for help ... any help that you can offer ...
I am not selling any e-book, Google listing scheme, or how to build some
kind of monster list - to empower you to make millions ...

I have never learned how to master any of that myself ...
And for the most part - find all the claims that are made
by everyone 'guru'- as un-believable.

The fire, my near death was the front page news in our local paper and on our local
WOAY and WVVA local television stations as the news of the hour.

I refused to get into the $1,000 ambulance setting there ... but
because an off duty EMT was there talking to me - before the ambulance showed up ...
they billed our insurance anyway.
I will file a fraud report against those people - a little later.

Yes, I was full lucid and competent to drive my own truck and was headed
to get into my vehicle - when Gene Blake stopped me ... thinking that it
probably was not the thing to do.    I disagreed.

I had removed my burned clothing from my waist up -  to view my burns myself.
I saw nothing that merited getting into an ambulance over ...
and
I really saw and felt nothing that merited going to a hospital over.

Gene Blake is my closest neighbor and friend.
And
I listened to what he had to say ...
He did not want to take me to the hospital - himself.
But, Tim Connard - his son-in-law volunteered ... and drove me to the Beckley
Appalachian Regional Hospital - BARH.

I walked into the emergency room under my own steam - I was not carried on a stretcher. 
I knew where I was.  I was as lucid as I am today.
I knew where I was burned ... and really how bad.

I insisted that they treat my burns and release me.

Repeatedly!

Get this ... as straight as anyone can tell you ...
I went there to get the first aid - applied to my burns.
I was not in a coma.
I was not on drugs.
I have never used drugs - other than antibiotics when prescribed by a dentist.
And
I walked into the emergency room - under my own power and abilities ...
Telling the staff there who I was and why I was there.

The bloke who went about inserting the needle in my left arm ...
tried 3 times - causing me more pain than I was experiencing in all of the burns I was feeling.

And I told him so - telling him - if he could not get it right on the 3rd time ...
then he needed to find another job - Seriously.

The other blokes there went stupid on me.   ... wanting to cut off my pants ...
where I had no burns. ... and  i argued with them - telling where I was burned

and that I was holding my head up so as to not cause more damage to the burns
I was not beginning to feel on my head.    >>>>

Instead of talking to me - to find out what I wanted to do ...

The doctors went to my wife and used scare tactics on her ...
Threatening her with my death ...
And so told her that "they were incompetent to apply first aid to burns."
"Someone else had to treat them ... They were not going to be 'responsible' ".

They knocked me out ...
Forced my wife to agree to pay for helicopter transport ... upon threat of my death ...

The people at BARH did NOT follow my wishes ...

...contacted Air Evac LifeTeam
and flew me 197 miles to the Western Pittsburgh Trauma Burn Center.
 

The next thing I know - I am waking up later that night - in Pittsburg.
By before 1 PM the next day - we were on our way home from Pittsburg.
There was NO reason to go there - None - except - incompetence of the people of BARH.

I would have been better off to have someone wrap my head and hand with clean sheets

and drive myself to the closest Burn treatment hospital ... some 200 miles away.

I never authorized them to do anything like this for me.
My wife does not have my power of attorney.

I did not go to the emergency room to go to a burn center.
I went there for treatment of the burns that I received.

I did not stay 24 hours in Pittsburg.
There was no need for me to go there - in the first place.
It literally was $14,000 to have a bed for the night and a shower  the next morning.

And another $200 for an eye doctor to ask me if I could see.
I could see - before I ever went to the emergency room.
Ludicrous!

I had no agreement to go to a trauma center or to pay the expenses
that were forced upon us.  In fact - I could see what the damages were
before I ever climbed up in the truck to go to the BARH emergency room.

The one and only thing that I expected BARH officials to do ...
were to use good sense and treat the burns ... with antibiotics and gauze wrap -

My body would do the rest - and heal itself.
This is all that any burn is ever treated.

And I know this - And - you do also - if you have lived any amount of time in your life.

This was no difference in the treatment that the people in the Western Penn Burn Center
provided for me - that what was available at BARH.

And if I needed the use of a ventilator to prevent internal swelling from
closing off air to my lungs - to supply and use that tool - which is common
to most hospitals.

I truly fail to see -
why the people at BARH chose to say that they were incompetent to handle - non life threatening burns. 

 I was not burned head to toe - as many of the patients of the Trauma unit in Pittsburg.  

To me - incompetence is the only possible - plausible reason that BARH can have for
not supplying immediate first aid to burns that were not life threatening.

I did not give up my rights to my own body - when I laid down on the emergency room workstation.
Yet - they (BARH) has taken it upon themselves to say that I did not have the right to say what I
wanted them to do - which is ludicrous to me as well.

It is beyond my understanding of what is right.

In my view - it would have been no different than falling and having a broken arm.
... and going to get the help that is needed from people
who are supposed to be able to deal with normal human body events.

Seriously !

Those 197 miles - they have billed some $23,998.72 .
Blue Cross / Blue Shield has paid some $5955.00

The weekend of 27th of March, we were shocked to find a check in the mail from
Blue Cross to pick up the additional $18,000

So we are thankful that Blue Cross covered the helicopter ride in full.

We need help in paying other bills. 
 

The building is leveled.

Much of my lifetime collection of automotive tools were picked up
and thrown into one of 4 huge dumpsters while I was recovering the first 2 weeks.

Jim Akers 04 VW Diesel Beetle was roasted to the ground ...
along with the hydraulic lift that it was setting on ...

And the only thing that the insurance company said ...
if the shop was within a 100 feet of your home, we would have covered it - all.

including the EverGeen people who came for the water contamination containment.

If we auctioned off our

1991 VW Jetta,

1991 Ford Pickup

1987 Chevy Utilimaster

1999 Ford Contour - now eat up with rust ... with 206,000 miles on it.
The engine jumped time, the last time I went to start it. 4 April 10.

We might be able to scrape together $2500.00

And then be walking ...  NO - we do not drive all these vehicles ...
The point being - we do not now or ever will drive a new or newer vehicle.
All of what we own is old models - which most other people would call junk ...
and as "junk" - would have no desire to own any of it - or pay anything for any piece.

If you could help us ...   We do need your help.

If you will make an anonymous charitable donation ...
 

You could use the PayPal links at the bottom of the page.

Across Christmas week - I spent that week in the hospital - having an incredible
battery of some 20 bags of antibiotics to kill Staff infections and MRSA.

MRSA ... that I picked up at the Pittsburg Burn Trauma Hospital.

Then Surgery to physically cut open two huge potato sized boil masses of these infections.
And Then >
A vacumn pump setup to physically pull out any remaining infection in those now open wounds.
And then ... more antibiotics after being discharged from the hospital.

Had I waited another day ... they said I would not have lived.
Over 1/3rd of my blood fluid was infection.

I am blessed to be living today.

My shop is now leveled ... with the fire departments spraying water on 2 stored oil barrels -
 forcing the oil out onto the parking lot, running across the road
and then barreling on toward the local culverts and into Sophia's water shed project

... which created the need for the EverGreen (EPA Water Pollution) people to show up
with huge temporary containment blockades & giant Pig Socks to soak up as much oil as they could -
 before it flowed on into the water table.

The WV State Fire Marshall came down and shook his head ...
chiding the Chiefs who came to the fire ... for not using foam on burning oil.
Or better yet ... they could have just let it burn ... and let it burn out.

They saved nothing of the building.   The 2 oil barrels had no value.
The fire department caused more bills to be created - that what help
they actually provided. - As the building stood alone - with no danger
to any other property or structure.

Did I tell you ... It took them 32 minutes to gather together and bring their
vehicles 300 yards down the street from the fire station  ?????

Did I tell you ... A vehicle that was no where near the building was left to burn ...
Rather than use one of the trucks there and pull it back 10 feet ...

Anyhow ...

Here is the link to it:  
The television news report - never tells the "Rest of the Story."
"Only the sensational facts of the moment."

http://www.register-herald.com/archivesearch/local_story_324230752.html

 ...  Complete with Gene Blake's first hand account
of what he saw and his son-in-law's efforts to drive me to the hospital.

to help us any way you can.

PayPal is one way that you could send a donation that could help change
my family's life ... and help keep us from loosing our home - over such heavy losses.

I thank you - sincerely for your taking the time to read this story of how my life was changed.

Today my bronchial tubes are damaged as well - and when I breath ...
Things are just not the same ... I starve for Oxygen with every breath.
 

With each moment of every day ...
I have a dull headache that I am told comes from my brain
just not getting the Oxygen it needs to function as it once did.
I am waiting for my memory functions to start decaying.

Our business is destroyed.
We have not declared bankruptcy or filed papers - yet.
And do not want to do so.

There are no funds we have to pay these staggering bills.
(And Yes - I know - that they are not much as compared to
1 million dollar plus bills which I have heard of  - since then ... )

$180,000 would pull us out of this whole we are in ...
at least for the losses that other people have had as a result of the fire.

i don't think things for my own health will ever get back to where it was
before that day ... Just don't think it possible.


If you can help us in any way -

other than some e-scheme that we can neither
afford or believe in ... we would welcome your help.

Rowan Cook & family.
304 683-5298

Nov20thfire @ gmail.com
 

    ShareThis