Link: BillingsGazette.com :: Group works to modify injured man's home.
Dennis Moore is determined to go back to work, but first, the executive director of Parents, Let's Unite for Kids has to come home.
Without some modifications to his house, he probably won't be able to get through the front door.
Moore, 55, was paralyzed in June after falling from the roof of his Billings home while trimming a tree.
In Salt Lake City, where he's been receiving occupational, recreational, physical and speech therapy for the past month, he uses a motorized wheelchair to get around.
Moore's home near downtown is not handicap accessible, but a group of volunteers is planning a $200,000 remodeling project that would make it so.
"People probably think, 'Why don't they just go out and buy a new house?'" said Connie VonBergen, president of the Friends of Dennis Moore Foundation, a nonprofit set up to help pay the family's bills. "This is their home."
The foundation wants to build a 600-square-foot addition onto Dennis and Vicki Moore's house. The ground-level space would be a bedroom and bathroom for Moore, who won't be able to access the couple's bedroom in the home's upper level.
The project would also widen the home's doorways and landscape a gentle incline into the front and backyards to make it easier for a wheelchair to reach the house.
Dennis Deppmeier of A&E Architects drew up blueprints for the renovation at no charge, and Tim Davis, who owns T Davis Construction, is donating his services as general contractor.
"I just don't think there's any greater joy than giving," Davis said.
Davis supervised the construction of Harvest Church, where he is a member, which was built with all volunteer labor. The church has taken the lead in the Moore project, although the Moores do not belong to the congregation.
"I've actually never met Dennis," said George Burgin, Harvest's outreach pastor. "We're doing this because we want to bless his family."
Vicki Moore has been staying with friends in Salt Lake City near the University of Utah Medical Center. The couple hopes to return to Billings in mid-September, she said in a telephone interview.
Doctors are weaning Dennis Moore off a ventilator, and he is learning how to operate a "sip and puff" wheelchair with his breath, she said.
"Dennis keeps trying to turn the miles per hour up," Vicki Moore said.
She said it's not known how much he will eventually recover.
"We're optimistic about what he'll regain," she said.
Contact Diane Cochran at dcochran@billingsgazette.com or 406/657-1287.
