Monthly Donation Recipient Matt Barkey
Each month Stubbs Dental donates the proceeds of all new patient exams to a deserving member of our community. June's recipient is Matt Barkey from Layton, Utah.
Matt Barkey was skiing January 20, 2018 at Snowbird Resort in Salt Lake City, Utah when he had an accident which resulted in a burst of his L1 vertebrae and fractured his pelvis. A "burst fracture" causes shards of the vertebra to penetrate surrounding tissues, and in Matt's case resulted in some injury to his spinal cord. He went through multiple surgeries that initial weekend. Since then he has been staying at Intermountain Healthcare in Murray, UT, and is now on the Neuro Rehab floor. He is going through rehab to hopefully regain function and motor control in his legs (his left leg is fairing better than the right). He is determined, and has made great progress so far.
SURPRISE
When Matt and his mother came to our office to receive their donation Matt was walking! What a wonderful surprise for us to see!
Before the accident, Matt raised and trained his dog Rudy, and became a Certified Therapy Team with Intermountain Therapy Animals (they volunteer together at nursing homes and college campuses to provide comfort for people). His family hopes that Rudy will become a companion for Matt along his road to recovery. Matt loves the outdoors. He skates, skies, and bikes (mountain and road). He has done triathlons, long road bike trips with his family, backpack trips with friends. He recently was able to take a backpacking trip with friends to Glacier National Park, which he hopes to be able to do again.
Matt did many years in the First Robotics Competition, where he helped construct fully automated robots, and was also the Build captain for a year. (Matt continues to volunteer at FRC competitions). He doesn't just love building robots though, he also works on cars. Matt has a super sweet ride, aka the $wagon; which he has built and has loved working on. His family hopes to be able to retrofit the car with hand controls to help give him more freedom, and let him drive his car again. In addition, Matt is a mechanical engineering student at the University of Utah, and will be returning to his classes this fall.
Stubbs Dental was able to donate $1,980 dollars to help Matt and his parents take care of medical bills associated with Matt's injury. If you are interested in reading Matt's full story or donating to his cause please visit his Go Fund Me page.
So remember, when you become a patient at Stubbs Dental not only are you helping yourself by taking care of your teeth, you are helping a deserving member of your local community! If you would like to nominate someone to receive the Stubbs Dental donation please send an email to marketing@stubbsdental.com.
