Account to help Taos man who broke back jumping into lake
TAOS — Leon Lucero, a Taos man who jumped from a 35-foot-high cliff into shallow water at Abiquiú Lake on July 5, might never walk again.
According to a GoFundMe campaign page set up to raise funds to help him manage medical expenses, Lucero was spending time with his son at the lake when he misjudged the depth of the water below a cliff. He jumped and broke his back and an ankle and a leg upon impact with the lake bottom.
Nicole Chavez, a friend of the family, told The Taos News the operator of a small motor boat was passing by at the time of the accident and helped load Lucero into the craft and get him to the shore, where paramedics took him by ambulance to be airlifted to University of
New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque.
“The fracture in his back is pushing against his spinal cord and affecting his nervous system to where he is unable to feel from the waist below,” Lucero’s daughter, Miranda Lucero, wrote on the GoFundMe page.
Lucero’s recovery has been complicated by persistent infections in his back and right ankle. He had undergone eight surgeries as of Monday. He also was put on blood thinners to help manage a clot in his aorta, which doctors don’t believe to be life-threatening, Miranda Lucero wrote.
After three surgeries on his right ankle were unsuccessful in resolving the infection, doctors were considering amputating his leg from the knee down.
Lucero’s family is hopeful he will soon be able to begin some rehabilitation once his surgeries are over.
People can make donations at tinyurl.com/ yynnhes6.
This story first appeared in The Taos News ,a sister publication of the Santa Fe New Mexican.