43
Dog-rescue friends come to aid of Howland woman hit with unexpected calamity
By Ed Runyan
HOWLAND
Photo
Tamie Chicko was on her way home from work at Hillside Hospital last October when her car was hit. The registered nurse has been unable to work since then and has mounting medical, utility and pet care bills.
Photo
A woman plowed her car across US Route 422, demolishing Tamie Chicko's Malibu and leaving her gasping for air with a crushed hip socket and broken ribs and pelvis. Her recovery was estimated at six months.
Photo
Tamie Chicko loves dogs and takes rescues into her home for three rescue organizations, but caring for her four or any other animals was out of the question after a serious car crash.
One of the defining themes of Howland woman Tamie Chicko’s life has been helping others – as a registered nurse at Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital and as a dog rescuer.
But an unforeseen calamity struck her last October as she traveled home on U.S. Route 422 near Templeton Road in Warren Township: a traffic crash left her with numerous debilitating injuries, including a crushed hip socket and broken bones in her pelvis and ribs. Her recovery was estimated at six months.
A Leavittsburg woman had crossed the highway from Templeton without stopping for cross-traffic, striking a car that then crossed the median and struck Chicko’s Chevy Malibu. The Leavittsburg woman later was convicted in Warren Municipal Court of failure to yield the right of way, according to court records and an Ohio State Highway Patrol accident report.
Chicko’s mother was on the phone with Chicko and heard the crash, sending her mother into a panic as she called out over and over and got no response. Chicko was using her Malibu’s hands-free phone technology.
“I was gasping for air and was unconscious,” Chicko said of what her mother could hear. Chicko regained consciousness about 15 minutes later and had a bystander call her mother’s house phone.
“I could barely breathe because my ribs were broken,” Chicko said. “The last thing I remembered is there was no door on the car. It had been ripped off and was down the road.”
Chicko said a trooper with the Highway Patrol told her she would have died if she hadn’t been wearing her seat belt or if her car had hit a telephone pole.
Chicko, who nursed others for 23 years, now needed full-time nursing of her own, spending three days in the hospital, 14 days at Hillside and 44 days at her parents’ house in Newton Falls.
She loves dogs and takes rescues into her home for three rescue organizations, but caring for her four or any other animals was now out of the question. She put her dogs in a kennel until Dec. 19.
“I couldn’t walk the first month,” she said. Three months later, physical therapy is helping to get back her mobility and strength.
But she doesn’t have disability insurance or income, so her medical expenses, mortgage and other bills are piling up, Chicko said.
She pays $200 per month toward her health insurance, is close to having her utilities shut off, and owes $3,700 to the kennel.
But Julie Day, a friend through dog rescue, started a GoFundMe page, setting a goal of $5,000. After seven days, the site had received $2,610.
“Many of you know Tamie Chicko as a dog-pound volunteer with a huge heart. She has fostered, walked and helped pound dogs from the Trumbull County Dog Pound as well as dogs in the community,” Day wrote on the GoFundMe page on the Internet.
“The insurance company of the driver who caused the accident has paid Tamie nothing for lost wages. She will not be able to return to work until the end of April 2016 at the earliest,” Day wrote.
“I don’t like asking anybody for help, but [Day] and a couple people from dog rescue insisted that I do this, so I did,” Chicko said of the fundraising.
Kat Scroggins, when she donated to Chicko, wrote on the page: “I have known Tamie for close to 13 years. She is kind, loving and selfless. This was a horrible thing that happened to a good person. She is an amazing mom to her Bubbas and she is a devoted foster mom to many dogs that have been in need. Love you Tamie.”
Marty Donklin, rescue volunteer for the Trumbull County Dog Pound on Anderson Avenue in Howland, said Chicko is the go-to person for dachshunds and has fostered dogs from the pound several times, taking a pregnant dog and seeing her through the birth of her litter.
“She’s been there for us,” Donklin said. “We are all rooting for her. She’s a wonderful person.”