Drunk Driver Forever Changes Fitzsimmons Family
At 1:37 p.m. Monday, Aug. 22, 2011, then 28-year-old Andrew Peters of Pierceton crossed the center line of County Road 100 North and hit a Jeep Grand Cherokee vehicle driven by Melissa Fitzsimmons, 30, also of Pierceton.
Fitzsimmons sustained a serious ankle injury but her infant daughter, who was safely strapped in a car seat, escaped unharmed. Now, 18 months later, Melissa Fitzsimmons is still recovering from the accident and she and her husband are faced with more than $300,000 in medical bills.
Peters was charged with his third Operating While Intoxicated offense and has pleaded guilty. He will be sentenced at 1 p.m. Monday, March 4, on three charges including two counts of OWI causing seriously bodily injury and one count of being a habitual substance offender.
In the meantime, the Fitzsimmons family is trying to pay for the medical expenses by utilizing a fundraising website. Peters maintained only the state minimum required for insurance and, when the $50,000 was paid, it was not even enough to cover Melissa’s initial surgery.
In their campaign to seek assistance with medical expenses, Gabe Fitzsimmons writes, “Our life has been turned upside down from this accident. My wife was an ER floor nurse where she was on her feet for up to 12 hours at a time during her shift and loves this job. She now is not able perform this job because of this injury. She is not able to be on her feet for more than an hour before the pain becomes so great she cannot stand on it at all … We have been told that she will never be able to walk again without pain, let alone run or even play with our daughter in the yard that would require her to walk on uneven surfaces because of the pain that it causes.”
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