GoFundMe Effort Raising Money For Firefighter's Wife In Hospital

ARLINGTON, VA — Jaimee Wise, the wife of an Arlington County firefighter, was playing with her three young children at home Tuesday, when she suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm. Fortunately, her 9-year-old son recognized his mother was experiencing a medical emergency and called for help.

First responders transported Wise to Virginia Hospital Center for treatment, but three days later she is still unresponsive and remains in critical condition.

Josh Wise is a 13-year veteran as a firefighter/EMT with the Arlington County Fire Department. On Thursday, his colleagues launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to help defray the costs of Jaimee Wise's hospital bills, medical transportation costs, home healthcare, and more.

"The GoFundMe was created because we're hopeful that she is going to pull through, but we do know there is going to be significant recovery and costs associated with that," said Bryan Lynch, president of the Arlington Professional Firefighters Association, IAFF Local 2800.

The firefighter's union has made a donation to the Wise family through its benevolent fund and members of ACFD are helping out by caring for the couple's three children and supporting the family through this difficult time.

"We're supporting it through our benevolent fund as much as we can, but these are significant costs," Lynch said. "We can't think of people who deserve assistance more than the Wise family. They're great people and they're always the people who go out of their way to help others if something unfortunate happened to those people."

As of 7 p.m., on Friday, the campaign had raised nearly $24,000 toward its fundraising goal of $50,000.

"This is a really tragic situation for a young family," Lynch said. "Any help that could be given would be greatly appreciated.