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My name is Vilmos and I created this site to help Caleb. You can read the full story of how I'm connected to Caleb here. The short version is that I've known Caleb since he was 13 years old. He grew up with my kids and I love him like my own son. I am many things to Caleb; mostly friend and comedy mentor.
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I didn't find out about what happened to Caleb until nearly 17 hours later. It was Friday July 20, 2012 at 5:00 PM; just before I was to go on stage to do a show in Omaha. I spent the next 30 hours upset and frightened for Caleb. I had no idea how he was, all I knew was that he had been shot and he was in a coma. I suppose I was in shock because for that first 30 hours I don't think I had one thought of what I could do to help. I was too busy worrying about him.
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Once I got past some of my fear I was able to start thinking of what I could do to help Caleb. I'm 1,000 miles away so I can't go to the hospital; and that wouldn't help anyway. There are already plenty people there and I'm not a doctor; so my being there would do no good.
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It didn't take me long for me to realize what I could do. Aside from being a comedian I am a web developer. I have all the tools, I have the skill and I have the web space. All I needed was a little time to design the site and get things up and running.
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So that's exactly what I did. I started at 7:00 AM on July 22, 2012 in my hotel room in Canton, Missouri. That is nearly 55 hours after Caleb was shot. It took me until 11:00 AM to get the inital site designed and ready to go.
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Canton, Missouri is a 2 hour drive home to where I live in Abingdon, Illinois. I spent the entire time on my cell phone trying to get through to someone in his family. That's the weird part of all this; my relationship has always been just with Caleb, not his family. So I don't have any of their phone numbers or contact information. I eventually was able to get in touch with his younger brother Seth through Facebook. This eventually got me on the phone with Caleb's father Otis. Once I was on the phone with him I was able to get the location of the fund page they had created. I linked it up on the small site I had created and posted it; by 8:00 PM on Sunday July 22, 2012 this site was up and running.
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But no one was seeing it........
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I was following all the news on the Internet and TV. I noticed there was plenty of news on the event but there wasn't anything being said about Caleb. I found the same to be true the next morning when I got up; and there were no donations coming in on the fund. I was getting worried.
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I knew that I had to do something and whatever it was I needed to do it soon. It was important to get the word out about Caleb. Caleb's father appeared to be overwehlmed when I spoke wth him and the person that ended up being the family spokesman didn't seem to be ready for all this. He was not reaching out to anyone; he was answering media inquiries. While that might help some, it's not going to do the job. People need to be aware what was happeneing with Caleb. It was becoming clear to me that this was being left up to me.
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Unfortuntely I'm a nobody. I'm just a no name road comic. Trust me, you've never heard of me. If you saw me perform you would enjoy what I do; but I've never been on TV. The closest thing I have to a big audience is a podcast I do called The Green Room; I'm pretty sure you've never heard it either.
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Under normal circumstances being famous is not important to me; I couldn't care less. This is the only time in my life I wished I was famous; but only for the purpose of getting Caleb's message out. So at this point I'm sure you can understand my concern. I have no way of getting the word out. Then it occured to me; the Podcast ......
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I'd been doing The Green Room since April of 2008, so I've talked to a lot of comedians. What you may not know is that comedians are a pretty tight knit group. I've always believed comedy is a brotherhood and I knew I could depend on my brother comedians to help me out. So I got out my show log for The Green Room.
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So even though I may be a nobody but I know plenty of somebodies. I opened up my book and one by one I contacted over 200 comedians. My message to them was a simple one; get the word out. I told them all they needed to know; Caleb was in a coma, he'd lost some brain tissue, he'd lost is right eye, his wife was going to have their baby that day and I needed to get the word out.
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They really answered the call. Within 4 hours the comedy community had gotten the word about caleb out to over a million people. The donations started coming in at a phenomenal rate. Nearly $40,000 by 6:00 PM that night and nearly $100,000 by midnight of the first day.
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Those amounts sound like a lot but it is alarming how much money it is going this is going to cost. There is some talk of the hospital wiping out his bill. Even if that were to happen it's going to cost Caleb a million dollars to get himself back to being a functional member of society. At the time of this writing (7/29/2012) he has been in a medically induced coma and it doesn't look like he will bring him out of it for another 10 days.
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That's 19 days!
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You just don't wake up and go home after something like that. Plus he still has a shotgun pellet lodged in his brain that they will never be able to remove. It's too far into the brain; so at this point no one knows how much damage was done to his brain. It could take years for him to get himself to a point where he can function well enough to go back to work and hopefully resume his comedy career.
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I hate to even think about it but he may come out of this unable to take care of himself or he could even die. No matter what happens he, Katie and Baby Hugo are facing a very uncertain future; but there is one thing for sure, he will need money.
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Anything you can do will help. Prayers help, words of encouragement help and donations help. I thank you in advance for your interest and kindness. Caleb is a good person and is worthy of both.
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Vilmos Branyik
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