ALLEN PARK – More than 8,000 people gathered to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars in a GoFundMe to Ariel, the 5-year-old boy who was seriously injured last week in a car accident involving Kansas City Chiefs linebackers coach Britt Reid.
Among the biggest donors: none other than Jeff Okudah.
The Detroit Lions cornerback promised GoFundMe $ 1,000, which was created by the Ariel family. The money will go to hospital bills and lost work weeks for the child’s mother, according to the post. His goal was to raise $ 100,000.
When this document was written on Monday afternoon, they had raised $ 321,906.
Ariel was injured Thursday night when Reid, son of Chiefs’ head coach Andy Reid, drove his truck against two cars that were parked on a ramp to Interstate 435 in Kansas City, Missouri. The ramp is close to the Chiefs’ training complex, adjacent to Arrowhead Stadium.
One of the cars stopped because it ran out of gas and another driver stopped to help before Reid hit the two vehicles with his truck. Reid’s eyes were bloodshot and a policeman smelled “a moderate odor of alcohol,” according to a police report. Reid acknowledged to the officers that he drank two to three drinks that night and also took Adderall prescribed.
Ariel, 5, suffered from brain swelling and bleeding according to GoFundMe. The organizer wrote on Sunday that the girl had not yet woken up since the accident.
“No child deserves to go through this, nor should any mother have to see her child like this,” wrote the organizer, Tiffany Verhulst.
Reid did not make the trip to Tampa Bay for the Super Bowl LV and remains in the hospital according to media reports. Andy Reid traveled to Tampa, where the Chiefs lost 31-9 against the Buccaneers.
Okudah, the third overall choice in last year’s draft, is currently working his way back from end-of-season surgery to repair a central muscle injury. He ended up with an interception and two passes saved in nine games before ending it for the year. He stayed in the Detroit area and has already met with new coach Dan Campbell and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn to begin plotting a plan to recover in 2021.
“I like the child very much,” Campbell told MLive recently. “He looks like he’s hungry, he looks like he wants to get better, he wants to learn. I think he is willing to acknowledge his own weaknesses and work to improve, which is great. The only way to improve or attack a weakness is to identify it first. “