After Employee’s Spouse Loses Leg, Gaines and Company Gets Her Mobile Again by Donating Elevator
Taking care of their employees is at the heart of Gaines and Company, and it is truly evident.
Bob Moorhead, a Gaines and Company Grading Superintendent of 25 years, and his wife Carla were happy and healthy, living comfortably in their multi-level home in Pasadena, Maryland, when the unthinkable happened.
In September of 2017, Carla was suddenly admitted to the hospital for congestive heart failure and required an immediate triple bypass. “The bypass was a success,” recalls Bob Moorhead of that day’s events on a warm afternoon at an Arnold, Maryland jobsite. “They were giving her a blood thinner called heparin, unfortunately she was allergic to it and had a slight stroke,” he said.
Bob Moorhead has been a Grading Superintendent with Gaines and Company for 25 years, seen here at a residential development site in Arnold, Maryland.
As a result of her reaction to the drug, Carla developed severe gangrene leading to the amputation of her right leg and the toes on her left foot. “They were going to try to save them,” says Moorhead, “but they just got so bad they couldn’t,” he remembers. The heparin also left Carla with a large hole in her right arm and she suffered temporary memory loss after the stroke.
Their lives had been changed forever.
But these two are fighters and after six difficult months, Carla began to improve and even regained her memory.
“She’s doing better,” says Moorhead, “she’s got a good attitude.”
But Carla and Bob still faced a big challenge. “We had to take a wheelchair and carry her down the steps,” Moorhead says.
Although he had bought Carla a new electric wheelchair and a van she could ride in, he still had to carry her up and down three flights of stairs, including a flight from the first floor to ground level as their waterfront house is built on stilts. “I was checking on buying an elevator,” he says, “and Gaines paid for it – it’s unbelievable.”
Behind the scenes, Myrt Gaines, vice president of Gaines and Company, had already put a plan in motion to get the Moorheads an elevator no matter what it took.
“We knew he needed an elevator and we thought we’d just get him an elevator,” says Gaines. “Lee (Lee Gaines, president of Gaines and Company) and I decided,” he says. “Really that’s all,” he insists, “it’s no big thing.”
Myrt Gaines next approached Dominic Pope, Gaines and Company safety director, and asked if he would help find a wheelchair accessible, custom elevator to be installed in the Moorhead’s home. “Actually Dominic helped manage it,” says Gaines, “he’s very involved with personnel, too.”
“My father-in-law was in an elevator union,” Pope says “and he was able to refer me to Raymond Maule and Angel Zorn,” owners of RCM Elevators in Severna Park, Maryland, who were hired to build the Moorhead’s elevator.
The pre-fab elevator is external with a concrete foundation. “Bobby thought he was paying for it,” says Pope, “but when he asked for the bill Angel told him not to worry, it was taken care of by Gaines and Company.”
The elevator is accessible inside the Moorhead’s home and out, Carla just wheels into it, then pushes a button to go up or down.
Lee, Myrt (pictured) & David Gaines, president & VP’s of Gaines and Company were instrumental in the installation of the external elevator in the two-story home.
Gaines and Company Safety Director Dominic Pope’s father-in-law put him in touch with RCM Elevators, the company that built the Moorhead’s elevator.
“It kind of surprised me, but then again it didn’t surprise me because Gaines and Company are such generous people,” says Moorhead of their kind gesture. “They treat all their employees like that you know, they’re great,” he says. “As long you do good for them and work hard, Gaines is going to repay you a hundred times over again.”
Helping his fellow employee came only naturally to Myrt Gaines. “He works Saturday, Sunday, every day of the week,” he says appreciatively of Moorhead’s years of devotion to the company. “So it’s easy, all the hours he’s put in for us, it’s easy to pay him back.”
Gaines and Company, a full service site development company, donated an in-home elevator to employee Bob Moorhead after his wife, Carla, had an allergic reaction to heparin resulting in the loss of her right leg.
The elevator has given Carla a new sense of independence she simply did not have before. She can wheel herself into the elevator from the back porch and then have access to all levels of the home. “The elevator really helps because we live up on the top floor,” Moorhead says about Carla’s ease of mobility. “She just drives right in, pushes a button, goes down and gets out.” While the Moorheads reside on the second floor, their granddaughter lives on the first, and the elevator also enables Carla to visit her any time.
Bob Moorhead’s schedule has changed a bit since all of this happened and Gaines and Company has given him the freedom of flexibility. “If he needs to go home, he can go home,” says Myrt Gaines. Moorhead has since scaled back on all of the big jobs he used to work in order to spend more time with Carla. “I’m with her every weekend,” he says. “We ride together and go shopping together and things like that, things are coming along.”
Thank you to Gaines and Company for their generous support of Bob Moorhead and his wife Carla. This video says it all:
Gaines and Company is a full service, turnkey site development company specializing in underground utilities, grading, excavating, erosion controls and road work with locations in Maryland, North Carolina, Washington D.C. and Delaware. Gaines and Company is committed to the safety and well-being of each of their employees exemplified by the company’s unwavering appreciation and support.
