Thursday, October 20, 2016
Fundraising campaign for Pittsburgh actress recovering from car crash
Friends of Tracey D. Turner are running a GoFundMe campaign for the veteran local actress as she recuperates following an Oct. 7 hit-and-run car crash near the Westinghouse Bridge, in East Pittsburgh.
The incident occurred while Turner was in rehearsal for a production of To Kill a Mockingbird.
Turner’s car was hit from behind and slammed into a cement barrier. Her left arm, left leg, tongue and facial orbital bone were injured, and she has had six surgeries. She is expected to recover fully, but will be unable to work for a while. She will spend the next few weeks in a nursing home, undergoing several hours a day of rehab.
Her car was totaled. The GoFundMe campaign, "Turn It Up for Tracey D. Turner," seeks $15,000, mostly to cover the purchase of a reliable used car and to pay her rent and child-care expenses while she recovers.
Reached by phone this morning, Turner, 53, was between speech therapy and her morning physical-therapy session. “I am feeling better every day,” she said from the facility in Squirrel Hill.
The year had been shaping up as a good one professionally for Turner, with roles in A Lesson Before Dying, at Prime Stage Theatre, and Ruin, for the Entertainment Consortium Inc. African American Conservatory, already under her belt before Prime Stage’s Mockingbird. “It just seemed like everything was coming together,” she said.
Now, with pins in her left arm and leg, Turner, a single mother with two daughters, is getting around in a wheelchair and facing months of rehab even after she leaves the nursing home.
The GoFundMe campaign is organized by three of Turner’s friends, local performing-arts stalwarts Phat Man Dee, Christiane Dolores and Mark Whitehead. It’s off to a good start, with $6,315 raised as of today.
Turner said contributors have includes strangers as well as friends and family, and donors from as far away as France and New Zealand. “I have been blessed,” she said. “I am just blown away, I am humbled.”
Turner thanks everyone who’s helped her for their support and prayers — especially the Lesko family, who has been assisting in the care of Turner’s 10-year-old daughter.
The incident occurred while Turner was in rehearsal for a production of To Kill a Mockingbird.
Turner’s car was hit from behind and slammed into a cement barrier. Her left arm, left leg, tongue and facial orbital bone were injured, and she has had six surgeries. She is expected to recover fully, but will be unable to work for a while. She will spend the next few weeks in a nursing home, undergoing several hours a day of rehab.
Her car was totaled. The GoFundMe campaign, "Turn It Up for Tracey D. Turner," seeks $15,000, mostly to cover the purchase of a reliable used car and to pay her rent and child-care expenses while she recovers.
Reached by phone this morning, Turner, 53, was between speech therapy and her morning physical-therapy session. “I am feeling better every day,” she said from the facility in Squirrel Hill.
The year had been shaping up as a good one professionally for Turner, with roles in A Lesson Before Dying, at Prime Stage Theatre, and Ruin, for the Entertainment Consortium Inc. African American Conservatory, already under her belt before Prime Stage’s Mockingbird. “It just seemed like everything was coming together,” she said.
Now, with pins in her left arm and leg, Turner, a single mother with two daughters, is getting around in a wheelchair and facing months of rehab even after she leaves the nursing home.
The GoFundMe campaign is organized by three of Turner’s friends, local performing-arts stalwarts Phat Man Dee, Christiane Dolores and Mark Whitehead. It’s off to a good start, with $6,315 raised as of today.
Turner said contributors have includes strangers as well as friends and family, and donors from as far away as France and New Zealand. “I have been blessed,” she said. “I am just blown away, I am humbled.”
Turner thanks everyone who’s helped her for their support and prayers — especially the Lesko family, who has been assisting in the care of Turner’s 10-year-old daughter.
Tags: Tracey D. Turner , GoFundMe , Image
