HOUSTON – For 30 years, Brian Shirley fought monster fires and helped save lives as a volunteer firefighter and assistant EMT for the CyFair Volunteer Fire Department.
But five months ago, Brian developed a severe infection that spread throughout his right leg and caused him to require four separate amputations.
Brian lost almost all of his leg to flesh-eating bacteria.
“It’s just very, very, heartbreaking to me that I can’t be out there helping people because my whole life, for 30 years, I was out there helping people, saving people, and I loved it”, said Brian.
Most recently, Brian worked at a sandwich shop, but unable to stand for hours at a time, he has lost that job and his family, his wife and two sons, have suffered incredible financial hardship.
“There has been no income coming into this home. I have been relying on friends and even strangers to help my family out”, Brian said, almost breaking down in tears.
Now, unable to work for at least the next six months to a year, until he can be fitted with and learn to walk with a prosthetic leg, Brian is currently living in an apartment with his wife and two sons, who are both autistic.
Brian is in need of a lot of help, most notably furniture.
The apartment he and his family are living in has almost no furniture.
His sons both sleep on the floor on inflatable mattresses and his wife is sleeping in a chair.
What the Shirley’s need most is a whole apartment of new furniture and now the Spencer Solves It team is making that happen, thanks to a very generous gift from Jim McIngvale and Gallery Furniture.
“Brian has always done so much for people at CyFair Volunteer Fire, working as an EMT, helping everybody... and now he is having such a hard time. So we want to donate twelve thousand dollars in new furniture to help furnish his apartment and help his family out. They have been through so much”, McIngvale said.
That is a great help, but Brian said his family will need more financial help to make it. His friends have set up a GoFundMe account for anyone willing to help his family during these trying times.