GoFundMe Page Launched For Injured Tarrant Firefighter

TARRANT, AL - Tarrant Fire Department Lt. Jerry Presley was injured when he fell off a ladder while fighting a fire on Woodrow Drive in Tarrant Sunday, and remains in critical condition. And due to significant costs ahead for Presley's family, a GoFundMe page has been launched to help with expenses.

Presley was rushed to UAB Hospital where he remains, having suffered a C-3/C-4 spinal injury, brain trauma and an arterial injury in the neck. As of January 31, he remains in the Neuro Intensive Care Unit (NICU) awaiting surgery to stabilize his spinal injury. The surgery has been delayed while they stabilize his cranial pressure.

“He is being medicated right now to keep him sedated so that the swelling in his brain and the intercranial pressure will cease to exist and go down and quit,” Fultondale Fire Chief Jason Rickles said. “He’s facing a surgery for a C-3/C-4 injury, it’s a compression injury, to go in there and relieve some compression issues on the central spinal cord.”

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Rickles said doctors believe that interruption of blood flow from the artery damage caused two small strokes - one in the left side and one in the right side of his lower brain.

Presley joined the Tarrant Fire Department in March of 2001 and has a son who graduated from Hewitt-Trussville in 2017 and is now a college football player at Murray State. He also has a daughter who plays volleyball at Hewitt-Trussville Middle School and another son who lives in West Point, Georgia.

The GoFundMe campaign can be found here.

Image via GoFundMe