A Habitat for Humanity volunteer who fell from the second floor of a house is suing the Roanoke Valley chapter for $12 million.

The Roanoke Valley Habitat chapter’s lack of supervision and safety precautions were the reasons Dea Adams fell in the summer of 2024 while working on the Bullitt Avenue project, according to the lawsuit. She suffered a fractured left leg and numerous other broken bones.

Adams will suffer effects from the fall for the rest of her life, according to the Aug. 8 court filing. 

The filing describes the incident from Adams’ perspective:

It was a hot summer day on Aug. 14, 2024, while she was volunteering on the Southeast Roanoke project. Adams had bent over at one point during several hours of measuring and marking floorboards, when she stood up, became disoriented and stepped off a section of the second floor of the house — a section that did not have any safety guards. She fell at least 12 feet to the first floor. Landing feet first, she fractured her left leg, broke her right ankle and heel and broke her right wrist. She was in the hospital for a week and later had to undergo a skin graft surgery on her left leg when it didn’t heal properly.

She was wheelchair-board and bedridden for four months.

Roanoke has steered federal housing dollars toward restoring and building new homes in the Belmont-Fallon neighborhood in recent years. Those projects have included Habitat for Humanity, among other affordable housing developers.

The Roanoke Habitat chapter is negligent because it did not provide proper training nor safety measures, according to the lawsuit, which also alleges an unnamed Habitat supervisor on the Bullitt Avenue job was injured while working in “an unsafe manner.” The lawsuit does not elaborate on that incident.

Adams, now 62, was a service desk technician at Branch Group when the incident occurred, according to the suit. A $10,000 GoFundMe fundraising campaign to help pay Adams’ medical bills was started by one of her friends in 2024. It had raised $11,660 as of this week.

Mark Cathey, whose Roanoke firm is representing Adams, said Habitat is an organization that does great work. But in regard to the Bullitt Avenue project, he said he believes the case will show that “there was an unsafe work environment.”

Adams is a resilient person, and she’s back doing light work at Branch, Cathey said. Her medical bills are over $500,000, he said.

Whether a large monetary award to Adams could impact the Roanoke Valley Habitat chapter’s upcoming goals and plans was unclear.

Karen Mason, executive director for Habitat for Humanity in the Roanoke Valley, declined comment on the lawsuit when reached Friday. The lawyer who Cathey said is representing Habitat did not respond to messages Tuesday. 

The chapter’s website lists protocols for volunteers, including that they should sign a liability waiver when they arrive on job sites. Cathey said he believes Adams signed such a form, but that does not relieve Habitat of responsibility based on Virginia law.

Habitat projects do have insurance requirements. Coverage and carriers can vary based on the chapter, said Jim Drader, the executive director of the Habitat for Humanity of the New River Valley.

The Roanoke Valley Habitat chapter had not filed a legal response to Adam’s filing as of Tuesday.

Close to 5,000 people volunteered on chapter projects in 2024, giving close to 60,000 hours of their time to help complete nine homes, according to the organization’s website.