GoFundMe Created for Family of EMT Killed While Tending to Crash Reaches $40K in 12 Hours
We like to talk about heroes. When we think of heroes, we think of men with capes or women with lassos. We think of comic books and blockbuster movies. But heroes, real heroes, wear neither cape nor cowl. They don't leap from tall buildings and they're not faster than a speeding bullet.
Real heroes are just men and women who do the best they can with what they have. They do the right thing, even at personal expense.
That's what 29-year-old Tyeler Harris did, and he paid for it with his life.
On December 21, Harris was working at the scene of an accident on I-80. He was a paramedic and it was his job, every day, to serve others. To save others.
While he was tending to the crash, a 2019 freightliner semi-tractor crashed into a Memorial Hospital of Carbon County ambulance. It also crashed into two first responders.
Harris was one of them. He was killed and the other paramedic was critically injured. The Wyoming Highway Patrol stated that driver inattention is being investigated as a possible contributing factor of the crash.
Read More: Driver Inattention Being Investigated for Crash, Death of 29-Year-Old First Responder
Four days before Christmas. He was killed four days before Christmas.
So we mourn him. We grieve for his family. And we do the only other thing we know how to do; we give what we can.
Harris' cousin, Kirklyn, created a GoFundMe page to help support Harris' wife and three children.
"Hi, my name if Kirklyn," the GoFundMe description read. "As many of you know my cousin Tyeler Harris had been in a terrible accident on December 21, 2022, that took his life. He was an EMT responding to a wreck on I-80. Unfortunately another semi had crashed into them sending Tyeler to heaven way too early. We are trying to fundraise to help the cost for the funeral and to help his wife Ashley and their three kids, in this difficult time. Thank you all for your help."
The GoFundMe page was written about 12 hours before the publication of this article, and in those 12 hours, it has already raised more than $40,000.
And that's unsurprising. When tragedy strikes, when bad things happen to good people, there's very little we can do. But we do what we can. And if that means donating a little bit of money to help a family, to ensure that on top of dealing with the death of their loved one, they don't also have to worry about money, we jump at the opportunity. It's all we can do, really. We know that money can't fix things. Money can't bring back those who are lost. But we give what we have because it's all we can do.
Tyeler Harris spent his days helping other people. He spent his day taking care of the sick, the weak, the afraid. Now, his family is afraid. His family is hurting. His family needs all the support they can get, so the community helps how it can. They may not be heroes, not like Harris, anyway. But they try.