A Honokaa roofing contractor sustained life-threatening injuries last week in a freak accident in Southern California.
Jade Leitner, owner and operator of Kamakani Roofing Services, was in Riverside, Calif., to attend a celebration of life for a friend’s mother — according to a GoFundMe page set up for Leitner’s family by a niece — and was knocked from a roof Feb. 9 by an electrical shock and impaled.
The page, titled “Please help Jade’s ‘Ohana with Medical Expenses,” had raised $24,687 of a $100,000 goal by Thursday afternoon.
Mainland news accounts report that Leitner was working on the roof at about 3:35 p.m. when he came into contact with an energized power line, which arced, knocking him off the building. Leitner fell about 20 feet and was impaled by a wrought-iron fence.
According to the Riverside Fire Department, Leitner suffered severe burns and traumatic injuries from being impaled. He underwent surgery to remove pieces of the fence at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton, Calif.
Leitner underwent a second surgery Sunday, the fundraising page stated.
Leitner sustained burns on 35% of his body and will need multiple procedures of extensive skin-grafting for third-degree burns. He also will require long-term hospitalization and monitoring,” according to the GoFundMe page.
“He was conscious and breathing when first responders arrived and was taken to a hospital in critical condition after he was extricated from the fence, authorities said,” the Press-Enterprise in Riverside reported.
The GoFundMe page said family members — wife, Rachel, and children, Jesse and Beau — have been advised by Leitner’s doctors to prepare to be in California for a minimum of three months while Leitner continues surgeries, treatment and healing.
The longtime local contractor was described on the page as “an avid motocross racer, who loved racing in the Mauna Kea 400 and the AMA Supercross.”
“Jade and Rachel (and then their children) have been our next door neighbor for more than 30 years,” posted Richard Spiegel on the fundraising page. “There is a mutual deep love and respect. My heart is broken to hear the suffering that Jade and his ohana are experiencing.
“We send our love and prayers for a quick and total recovery. Jade is an amazingly resilient person. He can do this! We are with him all the way.”
My Dad is strong, healthy, funny, amazing, outgoing person,” Jesse Leitner posted. “I will stay with him as long as he needs. Please get well Dad I miss talking with you. Please stop getting hurt Dad, we can’t take seeing (you) in pain anymore.”
“Our future is uncertain right now, but we are going to do everything to help him to come out of this for his family,” the page’s main text reads. “Jade is an amazing Dad who loves his kids Jesse and Beau with everything he has, he is a loving Husband, the greatest Uncle his nieces and nephews could ask for (our uncle ‘potato’), a son, brother, friend and so much more!”
The Tribune-Herald reached out to the niece who posted the fundraiser and to Kamakani Roofing, but didn’t receive a reply in time for this story.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.