Captain Crunch needs your help

There's no mention of this on John Draper's personal website or MySpace page. How do we know this message is from John Draper?<p><a href="http://www.webcrunchers.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.webcrunchers.com/</a><p><a href="http://www.myspace.com/jdcrunchman" rel="nofollow">http://www.myspace.com/jdcrunchman</a><p>(Found webcrunchers via Wikipedia <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Draper" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Draper</a> and found MySpace via webcrunchers.)

The US healthcare system never fails to shock and horrify me. I am so thankful for my dual citizenship every time I hear a story like this. Pathetic and sad.

USD 6000 + 2000? I don't want to seem insensitive, but a guy with Crunch's talent should easily be able to make the payments. He could take it across several years if he wanted to.<p>(Or he should have just gotten medical insurance in the first place, although I've heard some nasty things about private health insurance in America.)

There are barely visible links at the bottom of the page for "Shop the Best Verizon Wireless Deals" and "Thanks to Top CD Rates, Bank Rates and Bad Credit".<p>Nobody can verify the affiliation with John Draper.<p>I suspect this is a both a scam and black hat SEO.

FWIW the 10K number is about right. The average cost of removing spinal hernia in Mayo clinic is 11K as of a year ago, and I expect his case to be similar. That's covering the whole stay, and excluding any follow-up physio.<p>However the site does look fishy... or if CC in fact can't afford a 10k expense, then things are just plain sad :|

Hugged into submission by an overzealous fan?<p>...<p>Really?

The last few times he came up on HN I'm sure there were several accounts of him being accomplished but not a particularly nice person. I have no idea. Can that be balanced out?

I have been inundated with an amazing response, I know I need to update "webcrunchers.com", My "wiki", and my Facebook page. But due to my lack of being able to type at normal speed, I'm forced to use Mac Speech Dictate, which breaks when I get a skype call, or type with my thumbs. I can use a few more volunteers... "

Could they have added any more self promotional links at the bottom?

Being such a skilled programmer, one would think he could get a loan for a measly 10k and be able to easily pay it back with the kind of salaries we're paid these days...

Sent you a few bucks, best of luck with the surgery.

Who are the engineers that built the systems he broke into? How is their health these days?