Melissa Stinson followed the ambulance carrying her husband, Dennis, from Indianapolis to their home in Brown County on June 10. It was a day she thought would never happen.
Dennis had been in the hospital or a rehabilitation center since he fell out of a tree on March 20 and had to be flown to IU Health Methodist Hospital.
He was strapped to the tree on Scarce O’Fat Ridge Road and was changing positions to get to another limb when the fall happened. Stinson put his foot on another limb, thought he was stable, and unhooked his strap to change positions; then, the limb that was holding him broke and he fell more than 20 feet to the ground.
Dennis broke every one of his ribs and every vertebra in his back. One severed his spinal cord. He also has a traumatic brain injury.
Doctors say that Dennis may not be able to walk again, but Melissa said he is able to move his legs.
“As of now, his condition is that he is paraplegic and reflects a severe stroke victim,” she said.
This means Dennis requires daily care at home.
The family needs the community’s help to cover the cost of home additions to allow Dennis to live there in peace. A GoFundMe page has been created and donations are being accepted at People’s State Bank to the Dennis Stinson Fund. Habitat for Humanity will be doing the work.
Dennis also has partial throat paralysis, causing him to have a speech delay.
“He has windows where he is more conscious and more responsive. He has said some words — some of them choice words at the nurses when he finally had enough of it,” Melissa said with a laugh.
Dennis recently went through surgery which helped stabilize his spine. “We’re looking another four months out before the swelling of the spine is completely down enough to see everything he will be able to do,” she said.
Melissa has scarcely left his side.
“He chose to go on, so I chose to stay with him,” she said.
This isn’t the first time they’ve been side by side in a hospital.
Dennis received a lung transplant at Methodist hospital in August 2015 after waiting for a match for two years. Friends and neighbors staged a charity ride for the family and donated to a fund at People’s State Bank.
All of his internal organs, including his lungs, are working “terrific,” Melissa said.
“They never did give up. They pulled him off of the respirator for three days and he breathed on his own,” she said.
Dennis does have a feeding tube to receive medication, food and water. He is in a wheelchair and will be going to therapy. He does not use his arms right now. He can move them, but they are drawn up and his hands are curled. This is a side effect of the brain and spinal damage, Melissa said.
Doctors are using therapy and braces “in hopes that in time that when the brain comes down and finds its new neuropath, that what he has left will be usable,” she added.
“They tell me they don’t have a crystal ball, so they don’t know what Dennis’ final outcome will be. They didn’t expect him to wake up from the coma and he has woken up.”
Help on the way
John Werner, a board member for Habitat for Humanity, said the organization decided to take on this project because they saw a need, and because Dennis had done work for board members with his tree service company.
Habitat plans to add onto the family’s home to accommodate his needs and wellbeing, Habitat member Scott Mills said. “This likely will include an addition but may include some internal remodeling,” he said.
A sunroom also will be built that will allow Dennis to observe what he loves: nature. “I hate to be indoors,” Dennis said in a July 2015 story when he was waiting on his lung transplant.
Melissa said she brings Dennis outside for fresh air, but it is often for a short time because of mosquitoes and other bugs. “We’ve always found that’s sort of enjoyable for people to get out on, especially as they recover, and Dennis has a long recovery ahead of him,” Werner said about the sunroom.
Habitat also will install a ramp at the front of the house onto the porch. The ramp is part of Habitat’s Brush with Kindness program. It helps families in the Brown County area who are in need of work to make repairs to their home and fix accessibility problems.
Like with any Habitat home-building project, the Stinsons will receive a low-interest loan that will need to be paid back. Any money raised through the GoFundMe fundraiser or the account at People’s State Bank in Nashville will go toward paying off that loan, along with necessary medical equipment. A $25,000 goal was set. As of June 19, $1,150 had been brought in in 18 days.
Melissa also is in need of a handicap-accessible van to take Dennis to his appointments. Money raised also will go toward that purchase.
Werner said it is “extremely rare” for Habitat to take up a home renovation project like this. Last year, the group did a similar project for the Silver Linings Women’s Shelter. The cost of that project was covered by grants and donations.
Habitat usually builds one house a year, but the organization had trouble getting property in Brown County for a build this year. Property was found in Helmsburg, but a family has yet to be selected, Werner said. Building a new home for a new partner family will probably be delayed until next year, he said.
Until that project picks up, Habitat will focus on getting the Stinsons’ home adjusted.
Werner said Habitat has had some building materials, like windows, donated, and that will help lower the cost of the overall project.
Melissa said she had to turn her home into a hospital — with the help of a hospital bed and medical supplies — within a few days before Dennis was released from the rehabilitation center. Melissa, a couple of friends and family went through two weeks of training on how to care for him.
The remodel will allow the couple to share a room again comfortably. Melissa has been sleeping on a twin mattress on the floor beside him.
She also is in need of a generator to run all of Dennis’s equipment that is not battery operated in case of a power outage. During the weekend of June 15, when storms and heavy rain hit the county, Melissa said their yard was flooded and the power went out. She was unable to reach a generator housed in another building on the property because of flooding.
The couple also was unable to leave their home because their road was blocked with water on both ends. “I started panicking,” she said.
With the help of neighbors, Melissa was able to get Dennis into a van she had brought home to see if it would fit his wheelchair. “We had him in there so we could turn the air on. We really couldn’t get out both ways because the water was over the road both ways, so I had just decided that I at least could get him to higher ground at that point,” she said.
A neighbor brought his generator over, which helped get the electricity back on.
Melissa said that when visitors do come by, Dennis knows them.
“As far as the way he thinks and who he is, he is still there. He knows our grandkids; he knows our kids. When his buddies come over, he tries very hard to talk because he does know them,” she said.
She said she wanted to thank the community for donations that were made to the fund at People’s State Bank. Those helped to cover the cost of food and gas going back and forth to Indianapolis, and supplies for Dennis.
Bringing him home was “tremendous,” Melissa said.
“I never thought he’d ever make it home. He’s such a fighter. If people had seen him, how much he struggled to breathe and to stay alive,” she trailed off.
“At one point they asked me to just stop. I said, ‘How can I when he won’t?’”
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Melissa and Dennis Stinson need help to cover the costs of additions to their home to allow for Dennis to live there comfortably. Dennis was seriously injured after he fell out of a tree while working in March.
A “Build it for Dennis Stinson!” GoFundMe page was created on June 1 to raise money to help cover the cost of the addition, which is being done by Habitat for Humanity. The fundraiser had raised $1,150 out of a $25,000 goal as of June 19.
Donations to the Dennis Stinson Fund also are being accepted at People’s State Bank in Nashville.
[sc:pullout-text-end]This story has been corrected to show that Dennis Stinson is not the owner of Stinson Tree Service LLC. He was identified as such in stories in March and July in this paper.
