Man Feeling Better After Fall From Scaffold

Scott Cooney held a press conference on Tuesday to let everyone know he was OK after falling 20 feet from a scaffolding platform where he was raising money for the Spokane Food Bank.

It was the first time since the March 14 accident that he’s worn shoes. His mother tied the laces. He didn’t want the TV cameras to show him in his wheelchair, so he sat on his bed, flinching in pain.

“The pain, on a scale from one to 10, is about a constant five,” he said.

But when the camera lights came on, Cooney smiled and said thanks again and again to all the people who helped him raise the $10,000 he wanted to give the food bank.

Cooney had been living atop a scaffold platform in the parking lot of the Peking North restaurant for about a week when a wind gust blew him to the ground.

He had planned to stay on his perch until he raised all $10,000. The idea came from his fraternity days at the University of Arizona, where scaffold sits were done to raise money for charities.

Cooney had also hoped to get some publicity for his home-delivery grocery service, Delivery Boy.

He dreamt of falling the night before the accident.

When the wind took him, he’d gathered about $2,000. The fall cracked his pelvis in three places. He got out of the hospital a week ago, but it will be six to 12 months before he’ll be able to walk again without significant pain.

“I’m going to be OK. I feel a lot better already,” said Cooney, 21.

After the accident, Silver Lanes Casino stepped forward to finish Cooney’s fund-raiser. By providing $5,000 in matching funds - and with the radio publicity of KDRK 94 - the firm raised all the money within 12 hours of the accident.

The Spokane Food Bank will use the money to publish a newspaper, called Extra Helping, to inform the community about the food bank.