Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull KTM’s Jessy Nelson went down late in the second moto at Unadilla. In the crash, he was hit by his bike, and suffered a major back injury. We spoke to Jessy directly yesterday for the latest on his condition.
Injuries like this can go in many directions over time, and it’s hard to predict how it will all turn out. What is assured is that Nelson could benefit from support from fans, racers and the industry in general right now. Yes, Jessy had medical insurance, but as you’ll learn in the interview below, medical insurance doesn’t come close to covering all the expenses incurred with this type of recovery length and rehabilitation.
The Road 2 Recovery foundation is there for times like this, and has set up a donation page for Jessy. On Monday, we talked to Road 2 Recovery co-founder Jimmy Button, who himself suffered a spinal cord injury during his racing days, for insight into why such fundraisers are needed.
We encourage fans to take time to keep Jessy in their thoughts, and to donate if they see fit. Also, keep an eye out for a fundraising auction, which promises to offer an incredible assortment of items.
Racer X: Well, Jimmy, it’s terrible that we’re normally doing these interviews when something bad happens, but that’s where we are. This is where Road 2 Recovery, fans and the industry can come together to help a rider, and Jessy Nelson needs some help right now.
Jimmy Button: Yeah, obviously, sixteen years ago when we started the foundation, we started it for situations like this. Regardless of the rider’s popularity, we don’t differentiate between the ultra-famous like a Jessy Nelson and the riders that have yet to reach that superstar level. There’s no differentiation between one or the other, it’s just a difference where you will see more support on fundraisers for a rider who is more well known, just because the fans know them better. But, they all need help, and we look at them as one in the same. It’s super tragic what happened to Jessy over the weekend. We’re trying to raise as much awareness as possible as quickly as possible, and in the end we’re going out and asking people to dip into their pocket and throw a few bucks his way to help him out. We have an endowment set up for catastrophic injuries which will be able to help Jessy, but we will need to raise much more than what we have allocated through the endowment. Currently with the level of funds we have in the endowment we will be able to provide Jessy with minimum of $75,000 towards expenses.
We’re not going to speculate on his condition right now because it is in the very early stages, but you do know from your own experience that this will be a very long and expensive process.
Right. We’re not going to speculate on how this is going to turn out. When you have a big accident like this, the body has gone through a lot of trauma and it’s impossible to know how everything will turn out when all of this settles down. It takes awhile before you get to a point where a true diagnosis can take place. But it’s going to end up costing a lot of money no matter what. There’s no reason that someone like Jessy Nelson, who has entertained a lot of fans… there’s no reason for this to financially ruin the kid and his family for life when all of us collectively can come together as a group and provide the financial support to change that.
You know what sucks? You see some internet traffic and people say things about him being a professional racer, and he’s won an Anaheim Supercross, he’s had a red plate, so they say he’s making millions of dollars and why should he need us for help? Or they’ll ask why he would do this without insurance. Well, there’s just a lot of ignorance out there. This isn’t a matter of how good or bad Jessy’s insurance is, because I believe the insurance he does have is a great policy. The fact of the matter is, no matter how good the insurance is, if you have something like this happen, it’s going to cost the rider and his family an unheard of amount of money to get through it. That’s regardless of what your insurance is, regardless of your sponsor situation. It’s going to cost a fortune to get from A to B with an injury of this magnitude.
So you’re saying there isn’t a medical insurance policy you can buy that’s just going to pay for 100 percent of the care in a situation like this.
There isn’t. I mean, you can buy a catastrophic career-ending policy with Lloyd's of London, and if your career is over, depending on how much you pay into it, you could get $500,000 or $1 million, whatever that dollar amount is. But to give you an example of how expensive that is, a million dollar catastrophic policy currently costs around $40,000 a year. That’s really expensive, and when you consider how much most of these riders make, especially with all the expenses and overheard you already have to put out if you’re trying to compete at the top of the sport, that’s a lot of money to spend every year. If you don’t end up with a catastrophic injury, you don’t get any of that money back—it doesn’t apply with regular injuries. So, normally in this sport, you have to be making somewhere north of 500k a year to realistically be able to afford that, and you and I know there aren’t many riders that are making that kind of money, especially in the 250 Class. So, yeah, it’s a tough deal out there for sure. Regular medical insurance is still going to require an incredible out-of-pocket expense for this. None of us know what the end result is going to be, these are still early days, but it’s going to cost a lot.
Me, I had fantastic insurance and a tremendous recovery. I had a great recovery! But it still ended up costing me seven figures. And the reality is that even today, sixteen and a half years later, my injury, it is still a big monthly expense to me. It’s an injury that continues to take from you year after year.
Seven figures!
Yes. And fortunately I had saved a lot of money and the Road 2 Recovery had raised over a hundred thousand dollars for me just after my injury, so I had some money to spend, and when you’re down like that, of course you’ll spend every dollar you have to get better. Normal health insurance won’t really cover serious rehabilitation for this injury. I’ve spent over a million dollars on doctors and rehab because of my injury. That’s absurd, but you’ll do it! If you’re laying in bed in that situation, you’ll sign all of your money over and then some.
So what can we do?
We’ve set up a link on Road 2 Recovery so we can get some money for him. I’m glad we were able to get out in front of this so we didn’t get any of those GoFundMe things going. This way he won’t have to pay a bunch of taxes on the money he has coming in. There will be no tax implications for him and if you donate it’s all tax deductible. So if everyone can go on there and donate even five bucks, or three bucks, or anything, it will make a difference. If you’re really rich, go throw something out there—again it’s tax deductible.
Also, we’re going to gather up a bunch of gear from a bunch of riders and do a big auction. It’s obvious Jessy is a good friend of a lot of riders in this sport. For example, I talked to Kenny [Roczen] and he’s going to donate a full set of gear, including a helmet, and you know those Red Bull helmets are few and far between outside of the household of a Red Bull athlete. I think there’s going to be a lot of special stuff—talking to Troy Lee and [TLD KTM team manager] Tyler Keefe, they’re going to try to get a Factory Edition KTM 250SX-F that you can bid on. So everyone is trying to work through some details on all of those types of things right now. Everyone is digging deep on this right now. Obviously Jessy is a good kid, and no matter how this all turns out, everyone needs to rally around him and his family and give them as much support as we can at this time.
Yes, here’s the good thing about using Road 2 Recovery instead of GoFundMe. It’s pretty black and white—you can pay a huge income tax rate on the GoFundMe money or you can keep 100 percent of the money with Road 2 Recovery, which is a non-profit. What’s the tax rate if you raise a million dollars?
It’s whatever tax bracket you’re in. It could be 45 percent just depending on where you are personally. In addition to being responsible for the money raised you also get hit with an 8 percent fee from them, so you are basically just losing a substantial amount of the donations.
If someone raised a million dollars on GoFundMe, that’s $450,000 you’re paying to the government in income tax! Huge, huge difference to do it tax free.
Yes. We’ll be able to get him 100 percent of the money and he can use it for whatever he needs it for. Probably the first thing we’re going to do is work on getting him back to California, that would be my first guess. Everything costs so much because the needs are so specific. Myself, I had to fly from San Diego to a rehab facility in Arizona, it was a one-hour flight and we paid just over $18,000 for it in a medical jet. And that’s a one-hour flight, and Jessy is in New York right now, so that’s a five-hour flight. So the expenses can add up quickly, and anyone in this situation needs all of the help from us that they can get.
Anything else you can add?
I think the key is to just direct people to the website and the fundraiser. We’re going to have a lot of stuff coming in for the auction, and we will start cataloging that and hopefully get that going in the next couple of weeks. Beyond that, any positive thoughts and positive energy can help. If people go to church, bring Jessy’s name up for a group to say a prayer for him. I know some people might think that’s hocus pocus, but as someone who has been through this, I can tell you it’s not. Positive energy and positive prayers can go a long way in a situation like this.