MEADOWBROOK - A Cardinals baseball star is the largest contributor to a recent GoFundMe established by 19-year-old Maeghan Korte.
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Korte's mother, Barbara Turner, was struck by a vehicle while pumping gas at the Casey's General Store in Meadowbrook on the morning of Tuesday, January 2, 2018. Korte told Riverbender.com via text she could not comment much regarding the incident, but said her mother was rushed to St. Louis University (SLU) Hospital for surgeries required due to severe leg injuries. Korte said Turner is not expected to be able to walk again for as long as three months.
Turner is a single mother to Korte as well as her 7-year-old little brother and 24-year-old brother. Because of that hardship, the week-long hospital stay and multiple leg injuries are creating daunting expenses for the family.
Like many families experiencing the cost of healthcare following an unexpected injury or illness in the United States, Korte created a GoFundMe page. She said she is not sure if her mother has insurance, and if she does, how much of the rising cost it will be able to cover. Those factors led Korte to set the goal of that page to a lofty $25,000.
"I picked a random amount," Korte said. "She's going to be owing a lot with two surgeries, and we aren't sure about the insurance situation until tomorrow. It's undecided. She's a single mother and provides for her kids. We are going to need all the donations."
As of 12:45 Thursday afternoon, the page had garnered more than $550, with a $300 donation coming from the pocket of Cardinals baseball star Adam Wainwright. Korte said she had been following the pitcher on Twitter for some time and has sent him numerous tweets before he followed her in return. Since then, she said he has given her "shout outs," including one at Christmas.
On Thursday morning, however, Wainwright gave her a great social media gift of the generous donation. He subsequently tweeted a link to the GoFundMe page from his personal Twitter account.
"I love the Cardinals," Korte said. "He follows me, so I reached out. I always used to tweet him, and he finally followed me. Last Christmas, he gave me a random shout out, and this morning he retweeted my GoFundMe and donated."
Turner is expected to ultimately survive and recover from her injuries, but Korte said her mother is experiencing a great amount of physical and emotional pain from the incident.
It is not known at this time if charges will be pressed as a result of the incident.
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