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We’ve made it our mission at WINK to help pay off medical bills for people who are deep in debt. With your help, we’ve raised nearly $41,000, with every penny staying in Southwest Florida. A rollover crash almost killed Tamara Leaman and her family, “I have been disabled. I hate to use that word, um challenged for a while now …. mornings waking up are the worst…. I’ve kind of had to learn to accept the pain, unfortunately, and I’ve had to accept the reality. It’s sobering, especially at my age.” she said. MORE: Help Erase Medical Debt 16 years later, Leaman is still dealing with severe, debilitating pain and adding to it, compiling medical debt from doctors visits, surgery, pain management and more. “I don’t even like going to the mailbox I mean I literally don’t like going to the mailbox.” Leaman is part of an alarming statistic, that one in four Floridians are in deep medical debt totaling $6.6 billion dollars. And now, so is her daughter, who was recently diagnosed with POTS Syndrome. Leaman said “It stands for postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome and it can affect the entire autonomic system… Your heart rate, blood pressure, she gets nerve pain, headaches.” To help erase the mounting medical bills in our area, WINK News partnered with not-for-profit RIP Medical Debt. Something leaman says would be life changing if her debt was paid off. “I can only imagine if I opened up something basically saying we’re going to help you pay off what you owe and debt… not only would provide hope, I think relief.” WINK paid off the first one million dollars of medical debt in our community, and we want your help to erase more. Just $10 wipes out $1,000 in debt. While WINK and RIP cannot choose whose medical debt is erased, Leaman says she’s happy to know someone in our community will no longer feel the same financial pain she’s in. Be a WINK Hero for Hope. Together let’s make a dent in medical debt and help those in need. Click HERE to make a donation.