To say Ricky Faust had a bad year would be like calling the record deluge that swamped his Baton Rouge home in August 2016 just a rain shower, or calling the accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down only months later a fender-bender.
The 1990 Amite County High School graduate and longtime Baton Rouge-area lawman has fallen on hard times.
His current situation is so dire that just getting him to doctor’s appointments is a logistical challenge because he doesn’t have a van with a wheelchair lift.
As a matter of fact, when he shows up to the Cotton Gin restaurant in Liberty as the guest of honor for a benefit fundraiser on Saturday night, it’ll only be after his family had to rent a van so he could make the trip. Gisele Haralson, Faust’s classmate, is organizing the event, which begins at 9 p.m. and will feature live music, food and other activities.
“It’s basically a gathering of friends and family coming together,” Haralson said.
Haralson, who also lives in the Baton Rouge area, said she reconnected with Faust when she was a student at Southern University and she saw him working security at football games.
“We went to elementary school together, we went to middle school together. We went to high school together,” she said.
Haralson, who also lost her home to the flood of 2016, said she was watching the news one night in April when she saw a story about an officer being injured in an accident on the job. She was horrified to learn days later that the officer was someone she had known since childhood.
“He was responding to a call when a car swerved in front of him and he ran into a concrete barrier,” she said.
Faust, a former police officer in Zachary, La., had only been on the job with the Baton Rouge Police Department for a month or so when his home flooded.
Haralson said the loss of the home is a huge life-changing experience in itself. Paralysis on top of that is unfathomable, she said.
She said another benefit only recently enabled Faust to order a van with a lift, which Faust is still waiting to take possession of, but he and his wife and two children are still struggling.
She hopes the community can have a strong showing of support for a native son who dedicated his life to serving others.
“It’s a sad, sad situation and my heart is aching because he’s a classmate of mine,” she said. “We spent our entire youth coming up together and we were brought back together after the flood.”
