kcentv.com - KCEN HD - Waco, Temple, and KilleenParalyzed paramedic home from hospital

WHITE OAK -- It's a special homecoming just in time for Thanksgiving. A White Oak paramedic is paralyzed back in July after having a seizure.  He finally came home today from the hospital.  The family home isn't handicap accessible. Friends are pitching in to change that.

Camille Goodwin welcomed her husband Danny home Tuesday along with friends and family. "He's the strongest one of us," she says as she greeted him.

Danny has been at ETMC in Tyler and an ambulances brought him home. 

Their ordeal began in July. Camille was out of town and got worried when she couldn't reach Danny on the phone.  "I sent one of my friends over to check on him. That's when she heard him yelling for help and they found him in our pantry and he had been laying there about 10-12 hours," recalls Camille. 

Danny had a seizure the night before and hit his head on a shelf in the pantry. He broke his neck in the fall. The paramedic became a patient.  He is now paralyzed from the chest down.

Now that Danny is home the couple can't afford the changes to the house that must be made. Friends, including several firefighters, are pulling together with plans of their own.  "In the bathroom we're going to have to make sure that the vanity is slopped and the cabinetry so he can get his wheelchair underneath it," explains Ed Thomas with the Longview Fire department.

The room being renovated used to be the garage but in a couple of weeks it will be Danny's new suite.   "We just want to put lots of hands in this house over the next few days and just get a lot of people working," says Ed.

Outside volunteers will also build a new wheelchair accessible side walk.. This is help Camille says Danny would do for others if given the chance. "He is always thinking about other people. How he can help other people. If you're having a bad day he will make you laugh. That's what really pulled us through this is his sense of humor," says Camille. 

Danny did not want to talk on camera but friends and family hope the changes will give this paramedic the comfortable home he deserves.

Friends and volunteers will be gathering at the White Oak home this Friday to do yard work and pour the sidewalk. If you'd like to help with any of the projects you can call Ed Thomas at 903-932-7800.

You can make donations to the Danny Goodwin Medical Fund at any Austin bank.