My Holiday Help contestant is for my best friend of over 10 years...Telly Olympiadis. The weekend before Thanksgiving Telly was involved in an accident and was air lifted by helicopter to Augusta for emergency surgery. He was on his four-wheeler doing some work around his friends house in Dahlonega when the four-wheeler and him flipped over pinning him underneath it. He was immediately crushed by the machine and could not move. His friend, Ben had to call for help where he was then airlifted to Augusta,GA. Due to the upcoming holiday, no available doctors were here in Atlanta that weekend. He suffered a crushed ball and socket joint in his right shoulder and a crushed and separated ball and socket joint in his right hip as well. His right femur was pulled out of the socket and we was losing blood supply to that bone in that area. They manually tried to put his hip back in place two or three times before they had to hold it in place through traction. The concern on the hip was the loss of blood supply resulting in what's called Vascular Necrosis....bone death.
Thankfully, they successfully repaired his shoulder and hip, but they won't know if he has suffered any significant blood loss resulting in AVN of the hip yet. The net day he developed a blood clot which has traveled into his left lung. He has difficulty breathing at times and was put on a heavy dose of a blood thinner. He will be in a wheelchair for the next four months and then undergo a year plus of therapy provided that the blood clot has dissolved..
We are all very thankful that he is alive, but my request for him in this contest comes into play now. He is a do-it-himself contractor who is all hands on and his business was starting to really pick up over the last few months. Now with this injury, his business is completely shut down. He has a wife and two children, a two year old and a new born this past August. He and his family have become paralyzed by this unfortunate accident not knowing where or how they have finances to pay bills.
I hope his story finds its way into your contest as every little bit will help.
