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Take care of colleagues and friends in the pest and wildlife industry who find themselves in a difficult time.
One day Chris Sims brought his wife, Susan, along on a job for some extra help. Despite everything having been safely and properly set up and secured, he watched as she fell down a ladder headfirst that day.
As a result, she suffered a traumatic brain injury along with multiple neck and back fractures. Susan defied odds and survived the accident, however she has been and will continue to battle the effects of these injuries for the rest of her life.
Chris had to miss a lot of work to be there for Susan during her lengthy recovery and it was the wildlife control community that stepped up and helped them out in a time of need. Even when all the right steps are taken, we know that accidents like these can happen. WOLF is here to make it easy for people in the wildlife control industry to support each other at times like this.
You can learn more about the Sims’ story by watching the video up above.
There wasn’t a moment in our lives that Travis wasn’t involved in the wildlife community. He started a wildlife business not long after we were married in 2006. He loved the business and he loved the challenges the wildlife industry presented. After deciding to stay at home to raise our three kids, I also became involved with managing his wildlife business. We worked together for many years. I did the office side and he did the hands on wildlife side.
The one thing we could never figure out was how to be able to successfully run a business that really never had any way to offer anything for health insurance or emergency funds. When you have a family to think of, this is really a very big burden to carry. There were so many winters where work would slow down so much that all those emergency funds would get dispersed to pay those continuing bills. To not have a backup plan and to be unable to guarantee funds available is a scary situation to be in.
Travis was suddenly diagnosed the first week of October 2022 with stage 4 metastatic cancer. It had already went from his colon to his liver and lungs and lymph nodes. Not having insurance or enough funds set aside was one of the many reasons he never wanted to get checked out prior to October.
He was our sole provider and he always knew if he went down, we wouldn’t be able to pay our way in the world. He decided after his diagnosis to not seek further treatment. Part of this was based on leaving us with the financial burden of aggressive treatment and because he knew the end result would be the same.
He stayed with us for almost 2 whole months and then succumbed to his cancer diagnosis on December 20th.
During his lifetime, he made so many friends. A person full of so much knowledge, information, and passion for wildlife work. We were very fortunate to be blessed by many in the wildlife community during this time. They stepped in and helped out so much. Letters and cards came daily for several weeks. We had the wildlife community behind us along with many others who have ever known Travis. We appreciate everyone who stepped forward and helped us get through this past few months. We know that if a need ever came up, the wildlife community would be behind us.
Heather Wolford
