Comcast CEO gets Ambassador for Humanity Award for 2011...

Ok, this was very hard to swallow!!!!!!
Below you will find the letter I wrote to Mr. Brian Roberts, CEO.

Brian Roberts, CEO
Comcast Corporate Office
One Comcast Center
Philadelphia, PA 19103-2838
215-286-8960

Mr. Brian Roberts, CEO:

I am writing this letter because I need to tell you the damaging effects your corporation is responsible for due to an accident with one of your trucks.  I understand the statute of limitation in Massachusetts.  However, I was recently informed that I will live out the rest of my life in a wheelchair.  I need you to know my name.  I need you to know what happened to me.  I need you to make this right.

My name is Johanna Deery and in May of 2005 I was hit from behind by one of your Trucks in Cambridge Massachusetts.  The employee driving the truck was in a leased vehicle but with the Comcast name prominently displayed on the truck.  I was told however that the driver had falsified his insurance documentation and therefore Comcast found a way to not be liable.  I could have pursued criminal charges against the company but at the time had neither the funds nor the strength to do so.  Thus I had no recourse.  Since then, I have completely my Master of Criminal Justice degree from Boston University.  It seems to me that failing to confirm a drivers insurance coverage would make Comcast liable, at least in part.

In short, as a result of the accident I developed a rare neurological disease that at the time was not well understood.  The disease causes cysts to develop on the nerve endings inside the spine.  It is very painful, multiplies, affects the cerebral spinal fluid, causes nerve damage and has no cure. Today, through a great deal of research conducted by some of the most talented neurosurgeons around the world there have been significant findings and a better understanding of the disease and it’s causes.  The former Chief of Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore Maryland, one of the leading neurosurgeons dedicated to finding a treatment or cure for this disease, personally treated me and is considered one of the experts on this disease.

Due to the accident I lost my ability to have children, suffered severe depression and PTSD, lost time with my children- ages 2 and 3 at the time of the accident, my ability to work is gone and I have to rely on SSDI payments at a third of my paycheck, and slowly lost my ability to walk. 

Which brings us to today, instead of celebration this holiday season we are desperately trying to trying to adapt our home to accommodate my daily needs and try to come up with the money to cover Christmas for our two boys who still believe there is a Santa.  Will I have to ruin their dreams of magic and joy and tell them we can’t have Christmas this year? We are left with the huge problem of figuring out code and paying a contractor just so I can get in and out of my home.  We are left to ponder how I can get in and out of my car to bring my sons to sports, scouts and other activities.  We are left holding all of the damage, scars and hurdles, while your company will not even allow me a good bundle price because I am already a customer.  Verizon has not yet come to my area.  This whole mess, which has become my life, seems so unfair but now my children are being punished.  For example, my son Jack who is now 10 was one of the top draft picks for the majors division for 10-13 year-old boys, what if I can’t get him to practices or games because I can’t get in and out of my car?  He lives for baseball, he would be devastated!  All he wants for Christmas is a good bat that is big enough for him; I had to buy him a used one off Craig’s List and couldn’t even afford that.  Yet I know if I don’t pay my cable bill you will shut it off, and my husband wont be able to complete his on-line degree.  Do you see where I am going with this?  I am haunted every month by the whole experience every time I pay my bills. 

I am done being haunted.  You and your company need to step up to the plate and make this right.  I fear if you don’t I will never move on, therefore I must achieve resolution because I refuse to give you my future too.  I expect that you will respond to this letter by contacting me as soon as possible. If you do not respond, I will feel forced to take further action, and will research every legal possibility to ensure that Comcast takes responsibility for what has been done to me.

I understand that you recently received the Ambassador for Humanity Award, and because of this fact I want to share some insight.  It is really not in my nature to me so aggressive but finding out at 39 that you will spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair and your children will suffer because of it, seems to be bringing that unrelenting bit of my personality.

I also have a BA in psychology, and my last try at working I held the positions of Clinical Supervisor and Trainer. I had my dream job, I was able to teach and encourage all levels of staff working with the chronically mentally ill individuals in the community.  I was good at my job and I was a real asset to the community.  I had developed a reputation and became a liaison with the local police department, advocated in court for our clients, had contact with local media developing relationships along the way and I inspired people including at the State house, because I had talent.

One of the trainings I would teach discussed the process of grief and loss, which occurs not just when one has died but whenever we experience a great loss in our lives.  The stages are Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.  I went through these stages when they had to take my uterus.  I went through the stages when I became chronically incontinent. I went through these stages when I could no longer go on family outings.  I went through these stages when my five-year-old little boy asked me if I was ever going to get better.  Each time I went through the stages trying to reach acceptance.  I am tired of being the one that is always feeling the grief and loss, the one fighting for acceptance.  It is your turn now.  Can you accept what your company has done to my family?

Respectfully,

Johanna L Deery, MCJ

Update:

They stand on the fact that the driver was in a leased van not a Comcast owned van (even thought it said COMCAST in huge writing all over it) and that the statute of limitations is past.  

Ambassador for Humanity my ass!    

So now I have this song running in my head:

Bad Boys Bad Boys What you Gonna Do

What you Gonna Do when I come for you...    :)