From Jessica Riley -
Hi, I wanted to see if you could help me spread the fundraiser I set up for my mom. It's for my mom, Anita, who was in an accident on RAGBRAI on July 23, she is a woman who grew up in Iowa falls, I grew up in Iowa falls, my family is still there but mom lives in Williams. We are trying to raise money for her insurance out of pocket. Then if we raise anything more than that it will go to getting whatever mom will need.
She suffered a traumatic brain injury including a brain bleed on her brain stem, two broken ribs and some cuts and bruises. She spent about 12-13 days in the ICU with a week of that being intubated and essentially in a coma. 16 days in the hospital in Des Moines. She didn't open her eyes for 10 days, and is having troubles talking. She is in acute therapy now. Very numb on her left side still which is causing her issues with walking, eating, and drinking.
It is going to be a long road to recovery.
My mom is self employed, feeding Iowa with hogs, as she hauls hogs across the state of Iowa. When she is not working, money doesn't come in. I am trying to raise money so she does not have to worry about medical financial burden as she needs to focus on healing and getting stronger.
She has already set a goal to ride a day of RAGBRAI next year. I'd love for this to happen, but it definitely makes me nervous.
I'm attaching the go fund me. I also created a Facebook fundraiser to give people more options
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GO FUND ME INFO
My mom wanted to ride with me on RAGBRAI this year. She was so excited to go, she was even to winterset before I even woke up. We were riding from winterset to Indianola, on Tuesday July 23, just a short 38 miles. Mom was pushing those hills and determined to make it to the finish. She kept telling my all day that she was going to make it, that was her goal. We were about 8 miles from the finish, at about 1:45pm, when she hit a rough patch in the road and was in a traumatic bicycle accident.
I was right by her when she went down and was the first one to her side. Luckily we had medical personnel riding near us and they quickly called 911 and stabilized mom's neck. She was taken off to the hospital where she remains in critical condition. She suffered a brain bleed and a few broken ribs from the fall. She is very sleepy and hasn't fully woken up yet.
I'm setting up this go fund me page as mom will be unable to work for an unknown amount of time and we know that the hospital bills will be a burden that mom doesn't need to be worrying about as she is needing to focus on healing for us. If you would like to donate on here we would greatly appreciate any help you can offer.
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Thank you for taking the time and reading this. I hope you'll consider sharing this for a fellow bicycle enthusiast, even if people can just offer prayers we truly appreciate it!