Rotary Club starts fund to help Martin during rehab

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Most Big Wal­nut area res­i­dents know that Sun­bury Vil­lage Admin­is­tra­tor Dave Mar­tin was involved in a seri­ous motor­cy­cle acci­dent when he struck a deer on Novem­ber 28. Martin’s motor­cy­cle was found near the deer in a field; he was lying in the mid­dle of the road when the medics arrived to send him by Life­Flight to Grant Hospital.

After spend­ing a great deal of time in the hos­pi­tal and then in Dodd Hall for reha­bil­i­ta­tion, Mar­tin was released to undergo more out­pa­tient reha­bil­i­ta­tion at his son’s home in Michi­gan. How­ever, the vil­lage doesn’t have dis­abil­ity insur­ance and once Martin’s vaca­tion time and sick time run out, he’s with­out income.

“Dave epit­o­mizes the char­i­ta­ble spir­ited indi­vid­ual,” said his fel­low Rotar­ian Al Blyth. “He has spent many years help­ing oth­ers on a daily basis. He trav­eled with the singing group Up With Peo­ple, and con­tin­ues to sup­port their efforts through­out the world. He is an active Rotar­ian and sup­ports Rotary efforts self­lessly with his vol­un­teer efforts. He also has chaired the local Relay for Life Amer­i­can Can­cer Soci­ety fundraiser for sev­eral years. He has served on the Big Wal­nut Board of Edu­ca­tion, the Big Wal­nut Area Cham­ber of Com­merce, he works with “inmates through his church group, and he works as an elec­tion offi­cial. The list goes on and on …”

Blyth said he, other Rotar­i­ans and mem­bers of the Big Wal­nut com­mu­nity whose lives Mar­tin has touched have been work­ing to help Mar­tin and his fam­ily over­come finan­cial issues brought about by the accident.

“Dave is fac­ing really a dif­fi­cult time ahead while under­go­ing reha­bil­i­ta­tion on the jour­ney to his return to work,” Blyth said. “He has made ter­rific progress at an amaz­ing rate. He is walk­ing with a walker and his mem­ory is improv­ing daily, but Dave could use some help from us now. He was very seri­ously hurt and will have a long recov­ery from both phys­i­cal and cog­ni­tive injuries. He needs finan­cial sup­port to cover med­ical and reha­bil­i­ta­tion costs and safety mod­i­fi­ca­tions to his home.”

Blyth said he is ask­ing area res­i­dents to con­sider help­ing Mar­tin dur­ing his rehabilitation.

Dona­tions can be sent to the Sunbury-Galena Rotary Foun­da­tion at PO Box 837, Sun­bury, Ohio 43074. Ear­mark the funds for “Dave Martin”.

Feel free to con­tact Al Blyth at 740–965-4854 for more information.

Posted by Gary Henery on Jan 16 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.