DES MOINES, Iowa — A Windsor Heights man has had several surgeries after being thrown from his motorcycle in March. But now he's facing even more as he's having trouble getting the care he needs to repair multiple damaged nerves.
Joshua Prine said his insurance only gave him a minimal settlement, and added that the other driver also had minimal insurance coverage.
It's an uphill battle Prine faces, now potentially needing a hand or arm amputation, following the crash, without the assistance he expected from his insurance provider.
On March 10, a Des Moines Police Department states that an SUV driver turned left from the outside lane on Highway 28 onto Southwest Pine Avenue in Des Moines, cutting off Prine and his motorcycle.
The crash took Prine airborne off his motorcycle, and flipped the other driver's SUV and the two other passengers inside, leaving Prine with unimaginable injuries. He suffered a brain bleed, broken neck, broken ribs and both severed and severely damaged the brachial plexus nerves that control his left arm and hand.
At the scene of the crash, Prine said a nurse had been there to stop him from suffocating and inserted a tube to help him survive until other first responders transported him to Methodist Hospital.
"It's likely I will never use my wrists or hand again in my left arm," Prine told Local 5 News. "No one expects an accident to happen. But the financial part, it weighs pretty heavy. Because that is a limited resource, and for what I've been through and what I am going to go through the bills are enormous."
He is hoping to pay some bills with the help of others via a GoFundMe, as Prine awaits surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. in October to repair the nerves that remain damaged and severed. Prine mentioned doctors will take nerves from other parts of his body.
So far in 2024, there have been 205 total traffic fatalities: 43 of those involving a motorcyclist (about 20%.)
