NW Indiana man says he's disappointed that non-profit wasn't able to help him

FOX 32 NEWS - A Northwest Indiana man who was critically injured in a motorcycle accident says he had high hopes when a local group offered to sponsor a benefit on his behalf.

Now, he says he's been disappointed.

“We were expecting to get a little bit to put towards our home, to be able to purchase our home, that didn’t happen,” said Bryan Fabriszak.

Two years after Bryan Fabiszak nearly died in a motorcycle crash, the steel rods and pins inside his body are grim reminders of the 24 surgeries that helped hold his shattered frame together.

FOX 32: You have rods in both legs?

"Yes sir. both legs, femurs, fibulas, I got screws in my knees, screws in my ankle, plates in my toes, plates in my feet, pins in my feet, pins in my pelvis,” Fabriszak said.

Fabiszak, a concrete finisher, says medical bills and lost worktime have left his family of seven struggling to stay in their home. So they we're excited last winter when a non-profit called "Once Upon A Wish" offered to sponsor a benefit on their behalf.

“They had explained that they were going to do this fundraiser, and whatever they made was going to go directly to the family, and we were going to put that in the home fund,” said wife Ericka Fabiszak.

But they never got a dime. The Fabiszaks admit that only about 15 to 20 friends showed up at the American Legion Hall. But at twenty dollars per adult, they expected at least  a couple of hundred dollars from the benefit. They've received nothing.

Representatives for 'Once Upon A Wish' say they have repeatedly explained to the Fabiszaks that the fundraiser simply did not raise any money.

The nonprofit, located in Kouts, Indiana, declined to go on camera but sent an email saying, "Perhaps, if the family had aided in our endeavor, a) we might have made something and/or b), she could understand no money was made....Again, our sympathies to her and her family."

Bryan Fabiszak says they've let him down.

“It's not like I lost hope on humanity or anything like that. It tears you up a little bit that people can still, can still do that to you,” Fabriszak said.

The Indiana attorney general's office says it has received no complaints about the "Once Upon A Wish" organization in Kouts.