Misfortune of refugee spurs flood of help
Victim in hit-and-run has been in ICU for one month
A month after he was struck by a vehicle while walking across Montgomery Boulevard, Olivier Kamndon is still in an intensive care unit at University of New Mexico Hospital.
Although his condition is officially described as “satisfactory,” Lutheran Family Services Program Director Tarrie Burnett said some of his injuries “seem pretty permanent.”
Lutheran Family Services has a contract with the federal government to work with refugees like Kamndon who arrived in New Mexico late last year. He and his family fled their war-torn homeland of Central African Republic and hoped to find peace and safety in the United States.
Kamndon, who is in his late 40s, was learning English and had landed a maintenance job at the Jewish Community Center to provide for his wife and their eight children. News stories about the hit-and-run crash on May 15, which deprived the family of their breadwinner, has spurred a wave of support from the Albuquerque community.
JCC Executive Director David Simon said staff at the Jewish Community Center have donated nearly five months’ worth of sick leave to Kamndon, which means he will continue to receive a paycheck for that period. The center has also taken four of Kamndon’s eight children, ages 5 through 11 years old, into its summer camp program. Volunteers are shuttling the children from their apartment near Montgomery and Carlisle NE to the JCC near Wyoming and Academy.
“They should hopefully have a great summer and it will take some strain off Mrs. Kamndon,” Simon said.
Well-wishers concerned about Kamndon and his family have donated thousands of dollars to help them with living expenses.
“The outpouring has been immense,” Burnett said.
She said the money that has been contributed to the Lutheran Family Services fundraising website will be used to cover housing and other basic expenses for the Kamndon family.
Brianna Sabans, a volunteer who has worked with the family since shortly after they arrived in Albuquerque in October 2016, has a fundraising website and has organized a “meal train” for volunteers to bring food to the family.
“That has been a godsend. It takes a burden off his wife and eldest daughter
to cook for the large family,” Sabans said.
Melinda Forward, who teaches one of Kamndon’s sons at Del Norte High School, also has a fundraising site and a group from the New Beginnings Church of God at Montgomery and Carlisle held a carwash and burrito
sale on May 20 to help the family pay rent.
Samantha Ramos-Montanez, 19, who police say was driving the car that struck Kamndon, has been charged with leaving the scene of an accident with great bodily harm.