A motorcycle accident changed his life. Two years later, he needs help recovering.
_Bumper_REV2.00_11_06_06.Still002.jpg "Gerald Banks, pictured before and after the 2017 motorcycle accident that changed his life. He is in need of speech therapy and caregiver support after suffering a traumatic brain injury while riding in the Florida Keys.")
After her husband’s motorcycle accident in 2017, Miriam Banks left her job to be closer to home. She has depleted her savings account paying for his medical services.
Her husband, Gerald, 48, fractured his skull in a motorcycle accident in the Florida Keys and was in a coma for about three weeks. Once he came to, the long process of relearning how to talk and walk started. He is still recovering, but the couple’s health insurance stopped covering therapy sessions. Then they lost coverage completely.
While they work to regain their insurance coverage, the Banks family needs help paying for speech therapy and caregiver support.
“He doesn’t sleep so most of the time I’m up all night,” Miriam Banks, 52, said. “It’s like watching your baby start from the beginning to talk and walk. It’s like being his mother.”
After leaving her job at a law firm in Aventura, Miriam Banks got a job closer to home, at a title company in Miami Lakes, where the couple lives.
Before his accident, Gerald worked as a truck driver. He can’t go back to work, as he has short-term memory loss and “severe dysphasia,” or a speech disorder, caused by the accident.
“He wakes up sometimes in different time zones,” Miriam Banks said. “He calls me mom.”
Gerald Banks was driving his Harley Davidson motorcycle by himself near Card Sound in the Florida Keys on Dec. 23, 2017, when he crashed and fell onto his head, sustaining a traumatic brain injury. Police did not find another vehicle involved in the crash, and Miriam Banks said the family still does not know what happened that day because Gerald does not remember and there were no witnesses.
He was airlifted to a hospital, and police struggled to identify him due to the injuries to his head and face.
“They found him laying on the ground,” Miriam Banks said. “They seem to think he slid on the gravel. His face was destroyed. Even with ID they couldn’t ID him.”
The two years since that have been an uphill climb for Gerald, who lost 140 pounds during his hospitalization and subsequent recovery. Even now, he gets confused and struggles to speak. His wife gave him a cellphone to call her when he needs help, but he often calls her confused.
“It’s been hard,” Gerald Banks said. “It was rough.”
He said she has been a “big help” but more is needed to give Banks a chance to recover peacefully, Miriam says.
“He’s not gonna get any better,” she said. “I could really use help.”
HOW TO HELP
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