Couple battling cancer now batting huge toll bill

Harold Vale drove his wife Cynthia to every one of her doctor's appointments and treatments for liver cancer. They took the Northwest Parkway from Frederick to get to Boulder.

"I didn't see any collection thing so I thought it was new, maybe it was free to start with," Harold said. "For a period of time I didn't get anything in the mail so I didn't even think about it."

He drove the tollway for six months until he finally got a bill. It included six months of tolls for a total of $223.

"We don't have that kind of money. We're both on social security disability and doctor's visits and co-pays; we didn't have the money for that," he told Denver7.

Vale admitted that if he had known it was a toll road, or gotten a bill after one month, he would've paid it and not taken that route. But without the money to pay it back, even in $75 increments, he let the bill sit. It racked up late fees and penalties and was handed over to a collections agency. The next time Vale opened a bill, it read a total cost of $1,662.50.

"It was a shock is what it was," he said. "How do you expect me to pay this? I couldn't pay the $223, how do you expect me to pay this?"

But that bill is only one of his worries.

"I found out just a few months ago that I've got cancer," Vale said.

Contact7 reached out to the Northwest Parkway Authority about the case. A customer service representative is now in touch with Harold about the issue. Denver7 will update this story with any developments.