David Farland's Son - Medically Induced Coma

[jaxx6166]

On Thursday Dave Wolverton / David Farland's teenage son was critically injured in a longboard accident. Ben and his family were life-flighted to Las Vegas where Ben has since been in a medically induced coma. He has had multiple emergency brain surgeries to attempt to control the swelling in his brain.

Below is his most recent Facebook update regarding his son's condition:

"About Ben's accident: Ben went long-boarding with a friend up near Snow Canyon, a scenic place with lots of rolling hills. They had never been there before, and Ben's friend, Tyler, went down a steep hill and thought that it was too difficult for Ben's board. He turned around to warn Ben, but by then Ben had already been thrown from his board.

Apparently, Ben was thrown forward and rolled head-over-heels several times. That's why he crushed his skull (down near the hind brain), and then hit his back hard enough to bruise his lungs, then broke his pelvis/crushed his vertebrae, and so on. Beyond that, he has bad "road burn" on his knees, shoulder, back, hips, and so on, and a split lip. With the concussion, his ear drum broke, and he lost a lot of blood through his left ear and again through his nose.

An ambulance reached him quickly, and stayed with him until a helicopter got there to evacuate him at about 45 minutes. It flew him to the hospital in Saint George, but they don't have the equipment/staff to handle severe head trauma cases, so they administered meds and flew him to Las Vegas.

Ben is still in a coma, but his vitals are stable. They tried feeding him some solids through a tube yesterday, and he held it down well, so they're now starting him on more food. However, he hasn't moved since about 4 hours after the accident. We'll just have to hang on and see if he wakes up."

As of right now, the estimated medical costs are staggering. Dave and his family have no insurance and they are looking to end up with medical costs in the millions as of right now.

For those that don't know Dave Farland, he's a NYT best selling author of "The Runelords", a couple of "Star Wars" novels, multiple young-adult books and even a few self-published books like Nightingale and In the Company of Angels.

Dave has been a mentor to a whole bunch of authors over the years, several who happen to be a great deal more famous than I (Eric Flint, Stephanie Meyer, Brandon Sanderson). He's regularly been a judge on the Writer's of the Future Contest, which has helped plenty of other aspiring authors break in, most recently, a guy by the name of Patrick Rothfuss won and went on to publish something called "The Name of the Wind."

He's been a great friend and always willing to lend a helping hand. I respect the hell out of the man and have been privileged to have been able to learn from him.

If anybody here would like to help, the best thing we can do at this moment is a book bomb campaign. Dave self published Million Dollar Outlines, which is probably one of the greatest "how-to" books I've read. It was one of his text books in the classes that he taught.

He also self published a book called "Nightingale" which won a bunch of awards last year.

Since Dave self-published those, he stands to recover the most royalties from their sales. He's also got plenty of other short stories and a bunch of other good stuff on his web-store.



-kd Alexander

[pholy]

And from a tweet by KKRusch: Another way to help out - http://www.gofundme.com/BensRecovery

[cadele]

Originally Posted by pholy

And from a tweet by KKRusch: Another way to help out - http://www.gofundme.com/BensRecovery

Thank you for posting this.

I have donated this month's book budget and wish Ben a full and speedy recovery. My heart goes out to his family.

[teh603]

So by longboarding, do they mean skateboarding or snowboarding? Given the liability issues of both, I'm surprised they're still legal.

[ucfgrad93]

Snowboarding should be illegal? Really? What about skiing?

Longboarding is a form of skateboarding. Unfortunately, from the description of Ben's injuries it doesn't sound like he was wearing a helmet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longboarding

[teh603]

Originally Posted by ucfgrad93

Snowboarding should be illegal? Really? What about skiing?

Never said they should be, only that I'm surprised nobody's pushed to get them outlawed.

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by ucfgrad93

Snowboarding should be illegal? Really? What about skiing?

Longboarding is a form of skateboarding. Unfortunately, from the description of Ben's injuries it doesn't sound like he was wearing a helmet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longboarding

Thanks for the link - some of the pictures show guys without helmets as well.

Maybe I'm too much of a wimp, but I would not get on one of those things without protective gear - no way!

Anyway - I understand buying indie books will probably net more money for the Farlands. Just want to confirm that the following books were independently/self published. In Amazon I was a bit confused by the appearance of publisher names:

Nightingale
In the Company of Angels

If purchasing both of those from Amazon gives him 70% as self-pubbed, I'm happy to purchase those.

Also, I think I'll probably pick up this one as well:

On My Way to Paradise

Not self-pubbed, but looks like his first book caused quite a stir. I've never read this author before, but if I were to start it would be here.

[jaxx6166]

I'm not sure if On My Way to Paradise has been republished by Dave digitally. Nightingale, In the Company of Angels, and several of his short stories are ones that he stands to make the most by way of royalties.

Myself and several of his past students are organizing a "Book Bomb" on April 10th to try and help Dave out as much as we can with social media and trying to generate sales. Hopefully we will have an affiliate site or something created to try and increase the money raised. Dave's son, Spencer, was able to create a donation website as well (which I did see linked up above through KKR, thank you pholy for getting that out to everyone.

From what I understand, his son was riding a "longboard" skateboard down a hill without a helmet, his friend realized that the hill would be too steep and turned around to warn Ben, but by then it was too late.

I want to thank everyone again for taking the time to read this or help out.

Here's the newspaper article about the accident.

And a follow up about the fundraising site.

[caleb72]

Thanks jaxx6166. I'll settle for those three. I'll wait for the affiliate site to be set up so that extra revenue can be generated from the purchases. Will you post the affiliate site in this thread?

[jaxx6166]

Absolutely. As soon as I get the info passed along to me I won't hesitate to share it with you all.

[wizwor]

Originally Posted by teh603

So by longboarding, do they mean skateboarding or snowboarding? Given the liability issues of both, I'm surprised they're still legal.

Skateboarding. Not sure either activity should be illegal, but people -- especially uninsured people -- should wear protective gear.

[ucfgrad93]

Protective gear should be wore regardless of insurance status.

[jaxx6166]

Here are the affiliate links to Nightingale and Million Dollar Outlines

Here is the Facebook "Event" for the Book Bomb that is set to go off tomorrow.

And finally, the actual webpage that was set up to help Ben

Also, since those are Affiliate links, I believe anything purchased on Amazon through those links will generate a small amount back to the Wolverton family.

[caleb72]

Thanks jaxx. I made all three purchases after clicking your Nightingale affiliate link, so hopefully all register as you've suggested.

[jaxx6166]

Thanks Caleb. =)