Kimberly Fox from Woolwell is raising money to help her husband and former Naval man Foxy following a serious accident.
In the early hours of December 5 last year she woke up to a notification from Foxy’s Apple Watch to say “crash detected”.
Expecting to see Foxy in a dented car she made her way to the area with their eldest daughter and was met with a police cordon.
Kimberly was told he was alive but in a critical condition.
He had sustained serious life threatening and life changing injuries along with multiple fractures and breakages and had lost feeling in his lower body.
Kimberly said:
“They were unsure at this point of any brain injuries and were rushing him off for an MRI scan.
“I got to spend about 15 minutes with him, he was covered in tubes and wires and I honestly didn’t know if I would see him alive again.”
Foxy spent just over a week in intensive care where all the machines helped his body to try and recover and keep him alive while he got the rest he needed for the next long and extremely hard part of this journey.
The family were told he didn’t have any brain injuries and Kimberly remarked: “His sarcasm and wit started showing through.”
Foxy sometimes doubted his ability to carry on, but his family gave him the support and strength to keep fighting.
Foxy spent 10 weeks in Derriford Hospital and in February this year was transferred to Salisbury Spinal Rehabilitation Unit.
Kimberly said: “Four months working hard and with the fantastic support of the physios and occupational therapy teams and Foxy is now able to wheel himself around in a manual wheelchair for short periods of time.
“He is feeding himself and managing some self-care, his hands are still a work in progress and it is unlikely he will walk again so our whole life is changing in a massive way.”
Foxy’s injuries class him as a tetraplegic which means he is paralysed from the mid chest down.
He has been transferred to the PLYM unit at Mount Gould for pre-discharge rehabilitation
He is technically classed as homeless as their private rented property is not suitable for a wheelchair so they are waiting on the local housing authority to help them find a new home.
Foxy is now still just 44 and needs numerous pieces of expensive equipment including a standing machine at around £8,000 and several wheelchairs which all add up to many thousands of pounds.
Physiotherapy and hydrotherapy will be needed after discharge.
“Private sessions for these start at approximately £90 a session.
Kimberly concluded that: “Foxy’s Apple Watch saved his life.
“Without It detecting the crash and phoning the emergency services he would have been left in and out of consciousness in an upside down car for the whole night and wouldn’t have survived.”
At the time of writing £3,400 had been raised of a target of £30,000.
Kimberly’s GoFundMe page is at: https://tinyurl.com/mvj3rpnk