Local firefighter seriously injured in workshop accident
Schrade Rouse, a firefighter with almost 20 years of service for the city of Moses Lake, suffered a multitude of injuries in a workshop accident.
Courtesy photo
MOSES LAKE — A GoFundMe page has been started to help a Moses Lake firefighter with substantial medical bills.
Schrade Rouse, a firefighter with almost 20 years of service with the city of Moses Lake, was involved in a serious accident on April 2 while working in his shop, his brother Teddy Bryan said on the web page.
According to the GoFundMe page, Rouse was assembling an old ATV tire when the old split rim came apart and the air pressure launched the upper half of the rim into his face. The impact shattered both bones in Rouse’s right forearm, broke ribs, crushed his lower and upper jaw, and broke several more bones in his face and skull, in addition to causing a brain bleed.
“It is amazing he didn’t die right there on the shop floor,” Bryan wrote on the GoFundMe page.
Rouse awoke on the concrete floor, checked himself in the bathroom and then dragged himself inside to get help from his wife, who called emergency services. Rouse was then flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for emergency, life-saving surgeries. He underwent an emergency tracheotomy and was on a ventilator for the first few days after the accident. Rouse was fed through a tube in his nose for close to a month. Due to COVID-19 regulations, Rouse wasn’t allowed visitors at the hospital.
“Three months and four surgeries later and here we are,” Bryan wrote on the webpage. “Schrade is rapidly healing and he continues to amaze us with his progress ... He has been a model patient and the outlook for his recovery is encouraging. We are overjoyed to still have him here with us. He continues to work hard to regain his health and strength.”
Although Rouse receives medical insurance through his employer and has supplemental insurance of his own, fundraising is still needed, Bryan wrote. Doctors have advised Rouse to be prepared for over $80,000 in dental bills.
As of Monday evening, the GoFundMe account had raised $29,195 toward its $85,000 goal. Any excess money raised will be donated to the Muscular Dystrophy Association and the Columbia Basin Cancer Care Alliance.
To donate, visit the GoFundMe page at https://gf.me/u/yhhi9c.