LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — A 22-year-old man named Dakota Pay is in the hospital after a tree fell on him while he was at work on Monday.
“He was at work and it was almost time to come home and I got a phone call from him and he was slurring his speech really bad and I could tell something was really wrong,” Dakota’s wife, Breonna Pay, said. “He was like, hey, I'm going to the hospital, like I need you to meet me there, and then like click, he hung up.”
“They were in the background screaming like ‘he's throwing up blood, he's throwing up blood’ and everything, and that like scared me to death. So I just raced to the hospital.”
Breonna was able to talk to Dakota and his coworkers and learned it happened while they were trying to cut the tree down.
“The saw got stuck, and he went to go get another saw to get the other saw unstuck. Once they got that saw unstuck, it kind of fell in the wrong direction. So, it came directly at him instead of the way it was supposed to go.”
The tree caused a skull fracture, spinal injuries, and a severed artery. Dakota has been at UK since Monday, and he had his first surgery on Thursday.
“They were able to place some metal plates in his face, to kind of reconstruct everything that was that was misplaced and broken,” Breonna shared. “They wired his jaw to back to his skull, because it was completely just shattered and dislocated.”
Dakota and Breonna have three kids, ages 2, 4, and 6, and they are in need of support as the recovery process begins.
“It's going be a lot of physical therapy and a lot of rehabilitation, obviously,” said Breonna, “but he is expected to recover.”
Dakota was on the job with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet when the tree fell. KTCT released this statement to LEX 18 today:
The safety of all employees is a top priority of Team KY.
An incident involving a Kentucky Transportation employee during tree trimming operations occurred Tuesday on Cleveland Road/KY 1973 in Fayette County.
Our focus is on the well-being of our team member and his family.
We are working with authorities as they review the incident and have no further details at this time.
“His work has been really supportive as well,” Breonna said. ”They've started up a fundraiser to collect gas gift cards and food gift cards that way we don't have to worry about it.”
“Just knowing that there are people out there that do care helps more than anything,” she added
If you want to help the Pay family, visit their GoFundMe here.
