Untold Stories
People who have suffered hidden injuries have a story, and they should have a place to tell that story. I photographed 12 models, each of which has suffered a traumatic brain injury, including myself. One person could have massive visible effects, such as scars, impairments, or other disabilities. But there are also those of us who look just like everyone else. The general public and even the medical community still knows very little about head injuries, and each injury is different. Through this project, I am working to educate people as to the seriousness of these injuries, as well as the differences and severity of each injury. Each model is holding a photograph that either represents his accident or her life before the accident. Through these images and the stories that accompany them, I hope the participants’ friends and families will better understand how traumatic brain injuries have affected the participants’ lives and the lives of those closest to them.
Sarah Daniels - Car Accident - Age 17
It was December 13th 2006, today it’s six years to the day. I was on my way to school and was going through an intersection. I had the green light and was entering the intersection at 20mph. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a car coming, but before I could stop I hit him. I’m not sure if I was unconscious, but the next thing I remember was a guy showing up next to my window and asking me if I was ok. I said yes, and called the police and then my parents. The ambulance came and went without checking me out, and I just went home. I remember having a pretty severe headache when I got home, but I didn’t think much of it. Three days later I went to the doctor because my neck was so sore that I could hardly move. I had an MRI done which showed a severe sprain, but nothing was mentioned about a head injury for another month. When I told my doctor about my concern for a concussion he said “How could have a concussion if you didn’t hit your head?” Its pretty disheartening having to explain how someones skull could act as a barrier for the brain to your own doctor. At that point I had an MRI which showed no abnormalities, I was told to go home and rest and I’d be fine in 30 days. Then when I wasn’t fine in 30 days I was told I’d be fine in three to six months and that there was nothing to be done. I knew something was seriously wrong. I couldn’t sleep, I had headaches all day every day, I was in severe pain with my neck and back, I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t read, I had extreme fatigue to the point where I could only be active for an hour at a time. After that hour was up I was only able to lay on the couch for the rest of the day. I was extremely sensitive to light, I still am. I was sensitive to sound, I couldn’t handle loud noises. I had a mid-line shift where my center of vision was visually off, which affected not only my vision but how my body and muscles functioned. I went through three years of speech language pathology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and vision therapy. At one point I had multiple therapy visits everyday five days a week. I also developed migraine headaches, which went away after my vision was fixed. I’d say I’m 85 to 90% recovered. I still get frustrated really easily and don’t handle stress particularly well. My neck and back are still an ongoing problem. In certain situations, like if I’m under a lot of stress, that extreme fatigue comes back. I still have some headaches and will always have to work at keeping my vision where it should be. If I’m under stress the inability to sleep returns. Big crowds of people with lots of noise and interaction is very overwhelming. Its hard to focus on one conversation when so much is going on. I postponed college for a year and when I started could only take 1-2 classes at a time. The fact that I can say I did a full year at 21 credits is pretty incredible for me, I wouldn’t have thought that was possible four years ago. I don’t have any friends from before the accident. Until now most of my friends from after didn’t know about my injury. Its hard to know who to tell and how much to tell, because they say they want to know and they want to be there for you, but they have no concept of what its like and once they hear the story even if they want to be a support system they don’t really know where to start. I can’t say I wish it didn’t happen, because I wouldn’t be who I am and doing what I’m doing if this hadn’t happened. It sure does make me grateful for everything in my life and I was really lucky to walk away from this as healthy as I am, because I know it could have been so much worse.
Megan MacNichol - Car Accident - Age 20
It was March 12th 2002 and I had just turned 20. We were on our way to spring break and we were driving on the highway when we were hit by a semi-truck. It was told to me by all the locals that I stayed alive mainly because it was so cold but the EMT’s first on the scene of the accident said that their machines weren’t working and that I was choking and drowning on my own blood. But this one EMT always kept a turkey baister with her and that’s how she kept me breathing for the first hour. They had fly me to Boise and my friend got to just take an ambulance ride to the hospital, she only broke her finger. My injuries were: I had a traumatic brain injury in the frontal lobe. From the waste down pretty much I was shattered. The left side was affected more than the right side. My femurs were split, my pelvis was shattered, my left knee was completely shattered, and I had a tracheotomy for breathing. I started on the intensive care floor and went down to the rehab floor. My mom and sister would decorate my room and try and make it so I could remember things from my childhood and friends. I had intensive rehab, speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy for at least five years after. I was in a wheelchair for a year. Now I feel like I’m lucky that I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything until I was on the rehab level in the hospital and I only remember vague things. There was a rose garden that was the only time that I ever got to go outside. They would wheel me around the damn rose garden and I hate roses now. I remember little bits and pieces of my rehab; I’ve learned how to put them all together. Every head injury is different. You would know if you talked to me for long enough, I repeat myself. I have a hard time with recall, word finding, short term memory—like dates, names, appointments, that kind of stuff, my car with the rocket box that’s painted, that’s how I remember where my car is, that’s how I can find my car. I have on the windshield a little post it and everyday I write what I have to do for the day, I have it in my planner, and I have a white board by my bed that I write what the next day is before I go to bed. I have white boards all over my house. I don’t socialize at all anymore, I lost pretty much all of my friends. My best friend, we were inseparable, and then she was dealing with more of the psychological aspects of watching me die numerous times. I had some of my friends for a while, but eventually I remembered my life and it frustrated me so much that I couldn’t live that life anymore. It’s hard to understand at our age. I was watching all my friends still live the same life, and it made me really angry. I was really isolated for a long time, me and my dogs pretty much. I grew up horseback riding; I stopped in middle school because it got too competitive and too expensive. And I always missed it. I started volunteering at eagle mount with their horseback riding program; I learned about therapeutic horseback riding and was like “Oh my gosh, this is my calling.” Now I am a head instructor for Eagle Mount. I’ve gone through a lot of ups and downs. I have an older sister, she’s two years older than me and she literally would not leave my side. My sister and I have been best friends since she graduated from high school. And then after the accident she was a caretaker, and so we’ve had to work really hard to get back to being friends and just sisters. I think our family is healing. It just takes time. I got my own horse. His name is Nichol. He’s big, dark thoroughbred. Horseback riding is therapy, I believe more in animal therapy than any other kind of therapy. Its emotional therapy, it gives me cognitive therapy, and its also physically good but also hard. In my pelvis I have plates, it actually hurts me more than pretty much anything to ride, but I’m not going to stop doing it. I think I’m one of the best instructors because of my accident, because I am disabled also and I can have empathy and understanding and see things in a different way. I work with a lot of kids and I talk to their parents and tell them my story. It gives them a lot of hope. I got really lucky.
Mike Frost - Obstacle Course - Age 19
It was October 8th 2008 I was at the MSU homecoming event midnight mania with my brother and some friends. They had a big inflatable National Guard obstacle course and my brother and I decided to race, we’re fairly competitive. At the end of the course there’s a 10ft climb, a slide and that’s where the course ends. At the top of the slide I got my right foot caught in the webbing and couldn’t get it out. I turned to see what it was and pulled super hard, I pulled so hard I ended up rolling backwards down the slide. My legs stayed above me on the inflatable slide and the back of my head whipped into the ground. I don’t remember from the top of the slide, this is all what I heard from my brother who saw the whole thing. I hit my head and he said I quit breathing and my eyes rolled back into my head and my neck was all kinked at a weird angle. The paramedics came, back boarded me and took me to the hospital. Seven hours later I woke up and I was still on the backboard. The cat scan was clear so they were going to release me the first night. I kept complaining of tingly fingers and toes, which was a red flag so they kept me overnight for observation. The next day I threw up and they did an emergency cat scan. It showed a massive bleed above my right eye. My Mom had just showed up to the hospital, she figured I just had a concussion and I’d be in rough shape for a couple days. She just walked in and the docs like “he’s got a bleed, we’re shipping him to Billings.” It was a whiteout snowstorm and life flight couldn’t fly. All the ambulances were taken up at the homecoming football game, so an ambulance had to drive from Livingston to drive me through the snowstorm all the way to Billings. We got to the hospital and I didn’t know how bad all this was. I got out of the gurney and into the hospital bed by myself. I just jumped up and sat down, no big deal to me. The doc walked in five minutes later and was looking at my scans. He was like “holy crap, how did you just do that? How did you get from there to there? You should not be able to do that right now.” That’s when it sunk in that I was in kind of a bad spot. I stayed in Billings for a week under observation and then under doctor’s orders I had to drop out of school for the semester because college work would be too taxing on my brain. I went back to middle school with my little brother and TA’d for a math class. I took their homework and quizzes with them, kept my brain exercised but not stressed. While I was in the hospital I was extremely sensitive to light and sound, so my parents learned to watch TV with closed captioning in the dark. I had severe headaches, and I was really sensitive to anything sensory. Long-term effects are my memory, which was always terrible, and my short-term memory, which is terrible for sure now. Concentration is a bit off, talking to people in a loud environment, at a restaurant or a bar takes 110% focus to hear what they’re saying because I pick up on background noise. They say all your senses go up when you lose a sense, because I can’t smell anymore. I lost my smell and they say my hearing improved but not to what I want to hear. Those are pretty much the only symptoms I’ve had, still lingering would be the memory, concentration, and smell. I came out of it about as good as I could according to the doctors; I got pretty lucky. I do a lot of really dumb things like skiing and rock climbing, I take a lot of risks, but I wouldn’t say it’s slowed me down, I might hesitate a little and think “what are the consequences of this?” and I’ll still proceed to do it. I calculate my risks a lot more now, but I’ve tried not to let it change me too much. I think it just brought to light being a little safer in everything that we do because my family is very active. It peaked my interested in neuro. It was a good experience with med school now that I’ve had the patient side I can sympathize with the patients and know what they go through will hopefully help me in the long run.
Dan Wise - Motorcycle Accident - Age 20
I was 20, and it was July 29, 1969. I was riding my motorcycle home from work. As I made a left-hand turn, a semi tow truck ran the light and hit me at about 45 mph. On initial impact, my head and body took the force. My knees crushed the motorcycle and gas tank. Then, as I was drug under the truck, my feet went through the duel wheels. I was thrown about a block and landed on my head. I was wearing the best gear available in 1969—a helmet, brand new combat boots, denim pants, a work jacket and gloves. When I woke up in the hospital, I had amnesia. I remember a guy asking me some questions. I answered them. When he came back and asked me if I remembered him, I said “no”. He explained to me that we were in the hospital. He came back later and I said, “Hey, you look familiar.” He told me he was a doctor, and explained that I had been in an accident. We went through the whole routine, over and over. Every time he came back, it would start again. I would say, “Oh you look familiar.” I couldn’t retain anything new. Then, they transferred me to a Naval hospital, where I spent a month on their neurosurgical ward. I didn’t sleep for days; I couldn’t because of the pain. My legs were so mangled. I had 13 hairline fractures in my skull, which caused my skull to compress. I broke one toe, dislocated both knees and both ankles. One foot was facing directly backwards, and the other one was upside down. They let me out of the hospital after a month, and then I was deployed. I was the only guy on the medical ward who had traumatic brain damage from an accident, not from the Vietnam War. I was on a neurosurgical ward, but the doctors didn’t spend much time thinking about my head, after I got past the initial three or four days. And because it wasn’t a combat injury, they didn’t invest a whole lot of time or energy in my recovery. I definitely had a learning disability, which was diagnosed as aphasia. It means that when I heard a question, I could write the answer, but when I read a question, I couldn’t write the answer until I said it out loud. I still have a little bit of an issue with that. I have trouble learning new things; that’s the reason I have so much trouble with computers. I don’t understand the mechanics of them and can’t see how they work, and if I can’t figure out the mechanics, then it gets really frustrating. So, I have to learn hands-on. I used to get really severe headaches. Those stopped after seven or eight years. I remember things in pieces, especially right after the accident; there would be sort of flashbacks. The ambulance driver left a note in my helmet for me, and he actually became one of my best friends. Six weeks after the accident, a friend borrowed my motorcycle helmet, and this piece of paper fell out. I flashed on this guy named Tom. I remember this vividly, to this day, Tom standing in the emergency room and putting this note in my helmet and saying, “When you get out, come see me; you’re not going to believe this.” And he slipped the note in the helmet. Once I found the note, I went to Tom’s house and knocked on the door. His wife answered. I explained who I was and she said, “Oh, come on in…come on in, Tom’s not here right now, but wow! I heard all about this.” Apparently, when the ambulance got there, I was walking around. They had to drag me off the guy that had hit me, because I was in the process of beating him to death. He was a big guy; he was a truck driver, and I weighed 150 pounds, at the time. I guess it was pretty funny. From what Tom said, I was totally, completely out of it. Tom was a witness to the aftermath of the accident. I don’t remember any of it, so this is all stuff that I’ve been told. Today, if I suffer any head trauma at all, I revert back to that period. Last summer, I walked into a glass wall and hit my head, and for probably six weeks afterward, there was definitely a cognitive issue. As a teacher, it makes me understand students with learning disabilities better. I am very proactive with my students who have learning disabilities. I realize that all of us have some kind of disability; it’s just that some of them are very obvious and some of them aren’t. I still ride a motorcycle and wear the full protective gear. I don’t think I’ll ever stop riding.
Gerrie Myles-Ornek - Work Accident - Age 60
I was working for the Country Corner Café; I had worked there for 30 years. I was catering for a wedding, and we had roasted a pig that I was taking out to the site. As I carried the pig, walking sideways, I stepped into a gopher hole. I flipped over, somersaulting to the ground. I fell onto the right side of my head, and the impact jerked my head around. I fractured my C1 and C2 vertebrae and was flown to Billings to secure my neck. I had to re-learn everything, how to read, write, walk, talk, all of that. The doctors said I had a mild traumatic brain injury. As a result, standing up and doing work for 40 hours a week didn’t work very well for me. The work was also too physically and mentally demanding for me. I lost both my jobs. Now, my main focus is volunteering. My whole life, I have always worked two jobs. But I think for me, the thing that I would love to do most is volunteer. I’d like to work in the handicapped area, because they’ve done so much for me. I would like to work with people, either little people or old people. That would be my goal, to do something like that. I think I could help people that have had injuries, like myself. I was so social before my injury; I worked two jobs, I played in the adult soccer league and the city basketball league, I played music, I was a speaker for a ministry, I was always busy, busy, busy, going 100 miles an hour. Now, I’m a different person. Although I like people and I like to do things, I’m more reclusive and more content being just me, which is different. I still have lapses in bringing up the words I want to use; I’m a little slow and when I get excited, I stutter. Sometimes, when I’m in the store, I say “Wait, what am doing here, why am I here, what do I need to get?” I see an item, object or idea and I have it in my head, but I just can’t bring it to my speech, all the time. I don’t miss anything, not one thing from my past. I like the life that I have; I finally really love where I live and what I do. I have limitations, physical limitations; I can’t run. I have tired moments. I’m finally at a point where I can accept who I am after this accident and its okay. I spent my whole working life trying to please everybody and trying to do what they wanted me to do. Now, I don’t have any memory of that and so, consequently, I am who I am. People see me, and they don’t get it. They have no idea. And sometimes I have no idea either, but I’m happy the way I am. I like the way I am. The thing that I like the most is that I have learned how to deal with the pain of a neck injury. I don’t take any medication for it, mood altering or for pain or depression. I go at my own pace. I leave early to get there on time. I’ve adjusted that way; other people around me haven’t. I work really hard on physically and mentally being good. You explain all these things to people, and they don’t get it. If I didn’t tell them, they would never know, just by looking at me; I don’t have a scar, I don’t have things people can just see. I’m kind of broken inside; outside is just fine. There are some days where I don’t feel like getting dressed, and I look like shit. But you push through those moments, because you want to have some quality to your life. You have to learn to cope with the disability you were left with. So, if I have to walk a little slower, talk a little slower, be a little slower, that’s okay. I think you have a tendency to be harder on yourself then maybe other people are, but I definitely work at accepting it and understanding the issues that I have and saying “I’m okay.” And even adult people don’t accept it, so how can you expect for 25 to 30-year-old people to get it. There was a reality check of priorities, and now I’m just doing my priorities. Life is good. You can have a party in a phone booth, for the close friends that you have, when you think about it.
Peggy Stiles - Car Accident - Age 48
It was March 22, 2005. I had just left the chiropractor’s office on 19th and just got to the Baxter and 19th stop light. As I was pulling up, there had been a wreck on the other side of the road, so I started to slow down. The light turned yellow, so I stopped. The guy behind me stopped, but the girl behind him did not. I was rear-ended. I was the only one who went to the hospital; the other two were fine. She hit the pickup behind me hard enough that it smashed the back of my van to where you couldn’t open the door. It broke my seat loose. As much as I can remember, I did hit my head on the back rest. I don’t know if I was unconscious; it was only momentarily, if I was. When I went to the hospital, they did all the MRI’s and CT’s and nothing showed up, so they said I was okay. For a few days I think I was just so confused; I’ve never been in an accident or had an injury, and it was scary trying to deal with that part of it. I finally knew something was the matter with me, was when I tried to use sign language. We did sign language with my son for years. A few days after my wreck, the song we used to sign to was on TV, and I thought, “Oh, I’ll practice.” When I put my hands up, they weren’t doing anything. I didn’t know any signs. Memory, headaches, reasoning, processing, and panic attacks are all things that came about after the accident. After the wreck, me eyes were off to the sides, so they had to fix that. I didn’t sleep well. It took me a long time to be able to say this, but in a lot of ways the accident helped me. I would sleep four hours a night, and I was busy from when I woke up until bedtime. I’d do it again the next day. That’s just how I was, and I didn’t know any other way to be. When I first got hurt, I just looked at the devastation part of it, but now I’ve realized that it’s a blessing that I slowed down. Although, getting to that point, to be able to realize that, was horrible. I’d call my husband, if my son wasn’t with me, crying, and say, “I don’t know where I’m going,” and he would say, “Pull to the side of the road, take your planner out and tell me where you were going.” And then he would walk me through the whole thing. I had agoraphobia; I wouldn’t leave the house, so he ended up having to take over all the shopping. The only thing I could do was get to therapy. It took a long time. It wasn’t so much a fear of getting into another accident, it was the fear of running into somebody I knew—we’ve lived here for years and years so I knew a lot of people—and sounding like an idiot, because I wouldn’t know who their kids were or who their husband was or where I knew them from. So, I would get to the door and think I could go to the store and then the fear would just overpower me. I was mortified, because I had excelled at everything I had done before the accident, and it was embarrassing. I did lose all my friends. The one friend that I still have, lives out of town. Because you look normal, they think you’re nuts. I didn’t want any of the social part of it, and then I quit going out, because they just didn’t get it. I didn’t participate in stuff. That hasn’t really changed. That whole “You look fine,” they didn’t have any interest in knowing about it. It was ugly and it wasn’t good and they didn’t want to hear it, because I was always so happy-go-lucky. It was pretty disheartening. Then you start thinking, “Are you crazy?” because you have all of these people telling you it shouldn’t be happening. I’m still on medication for depression, sleep, and panic attacks. And brain fatigue, I take medicine for that. It kind of depends on what I’m doing that day; the fatigue depends on how much I’m using my brain that day. It gets harder to think straight, harder to remember what I’m trying to do. Now that it has happened, there have been a lot of blessings that have come out of the wreck, and I’m grateful. But it’s been hell to get there. I am glad that I’m calmer and I don’t have to do so much. For that, I am grateful. And it has made our family stronger; I believed I was more trouble than I was worth. I’m a calmer, more laid back person, I don’t work from morning to night, and I’m able to relax and enjoy myself. I appreciate the time, in general. It is precious, and I can do that now. So that is the good; good did come out of it. It’s still really hard for me to say it I believe it and its true—but it’s still really hard to say. Sometimes, it’s overwhelming; I’ve done all the stuff that they’ve taught me to do. It’s a lonely and invisible disease.
Michael Nylund - Climbing Accident - Age 20
It was June 11, 2011, and I was camping down on the Madison with my family. I was riding in the car with Krista (my sister) and Justin, and I decided, “Oh, that looks fun. I’m going to go climb that rock there.” I’ve done a bunch of climbing in the past and always had fun with it. I took off my boots and climbed in my bare feet. I shimmied up a few hundred feet, and the only time I was actually nervous was when I was a little over half way up, and I crossed over this crack; that’s the only time I was a little nervous and wondered if this was a bad idea. I came back down to this little plateau and waved at Krista and Justin. Then I hopped down and climbed down. I’m not quite sure what happened, whether I just slipped or whether the shale broke off. It also had started to lightly sprinkle, so that could have done it. I fell backwards for the first 10 or 15 feet. I bounced off my shoulder blades, did a flip in the air, and landed the last 25 feet down on my face. I remember all the climbing, I remember all the way up, but I don’t know what happened or why I fell. I remember, you know how your heart jumps for a second when you’re falling in a dream, but I was really falling. Then, I fell and crushed my face. Krista and Justin rolled me over, and they didn’t think I was breathing. Krista prayed and then it seemed like I was breathing, so they picked me up and burned rubber all the way to the campground. I was actually unconscious when they first carried me, but I regained consciousness by the time they transported me over. I remember the car-ride as only a couple of little images, almost like a dream. My Dad got to the hospital in 25 minutes from Bear Trap, which is impressive. We got to the emergency room. The nurses came out with a gurney, and they opened the door to the truck and their jaws dropped. We broke every rule of fire training, but it didn’t matter; I don’t think I would have made it if we had waited for help to come. They sedated me quite heavily, because I lifted two nurses off the ground—one with each arm—I didn’t want them to put in the IV. I had an MRI and CAT scan, and they took one look at me and said, “We have to transfer him to Billings. We don’t have the facility to treat him here.” It turned out kind of sucky for me; both helicopters were busy that day, so they had to drive me in an ambulance to the airport and fly me by actual plane. They had me sit up, because I’d drown in my own blood if I had been lying down. They pumped a liter out of my stomach. I broke my first two ribs, which punctured both my lungs. I broke one vertebrae, probably from bouncing off the first rock. And then my whole face was pretty much broken. My jaw was broken in five places, and every major bone in my face was broken. My whole right eye socket was crushed, and some parts were crushed to powder, they were so destroyed. They put me in the ICU, and the first estimate they gave was three to six weeks in intensive care. The doctors said they see an injury as severe as mine in that hospital every three to five years. I ended up only staying in intensive care for 24 hours. They didn’t operate the first night; they wanted to make sure I would pull through the night first. They did four major surgeries in one week. When I first hit my shoulder blades, I was knocked out; otherwise, I probably would have broken my neck from being tense and ready for the hit. The plastic surgeon asked for a picture of me, to see what I looked like before. They didn’t let me see myself. I asked them one time, “What do I look like?” Everybody who saw me started balling their eyes out. I thought, “I can’t look too good.” When they did the surgeries, they also put in a tracheotomy or I wouldn’t have been able to breathe. They put in seventeen plates and sixty-five to seventy screws. My eye socket is all metal, because it was crushed so much. I have a hammock-like piece of mesh that my eye sits on. On one of the last surgeries, they wired my jaw shut for three weeks. My pallet broke right down the middle, so they had a splint in there, which was screwed into the roof of my mouth. I went back for a CAT scan, and there was still a bruise on my brain, but I don’t have any side effects. I didn’t have any memory loss or mood swings; I haven’t had reoccurring headaches. I spent a total of 11 days in the hospital. When you’ve pretty much died once, you take life a lot more seriously and not for granted. You enjoy the moments that are there and live in the moment, because you’re not going to be here forever. It’s taught me to be a little more safe; I now climb inside with ropes. I could technically climb again, but it’s just not nice to do that to everyone else. Why gamble if you’ve already gambled once?
Alexis Pike - Bike Accident - Age 6
I was six years old, and I had a really great bike. It was purple with a banana seat. My best friend, Stacey Jordan, and I decided to go down the street, to the top of the hill, and ride down. She was riding on the back, and I was driving the bike. We did this several times. Every time, it was “go faster, go faster”. We were tempting fate even more by saying, “go faster,” and I was just peddling right along. Then, as we came down the hill, the alley crossed a street. At that point, the alley went from blacktop to gravel. We hit the gravel, and the next thing I remember was hearing ambulance sirens. They didn’t have bicycle helmets for kids back then. I don’t know how long I was unconscious, but I was lying in the gravel and hearing ambulance sirens and thinking they were coming for me. I got back up and got on my bike and started to ride back down the alley. I was in a total daze, and everything was fuzzy. I remember passing my friend Stacey, who was walking. She was sobbing and said “don’t leave me,” but I couldn’t stop. It was like being in a fog, and I just continued to ride home. I got home and my mother, who was a pianist, was accompanying an opera singer, and the living room door was shut, which meant Do Not Disturb. I remember standing outside the living room door thinking, “Should I knock and tell her?” Finally, an adult came in and noticed me, and then we knocked and interrupted her. She took me to the pediatrician, and they sent me to the hospital. That’s what I remember of that day. When I was in the hospital, they kept waking me up every hour, it seemed. My uncle stayed with me for a lot of nights. They brought in this big rocking chair for someone to sleep in. I was in the hospital for three or four days. I remember that I couldn’t walk, and I had to learn to walk again, but then it came back really quickly. My brothers were goofing around on the wheel chair that was in my room. Once I left the hospital, I thought everything was okay.. When I was recuperating at home, there were a few days, I think—I don’t know how long it was—but I wasn’t allowed to do anything, just be at home. I remember my friend Stacey and all of her sisters standing outside the house, calling me names because I had left her behind. And these were all the kids I hung out with, and they were outside calling me evil names and saying how mean I was for leaving her behind. She left ME in the alley, unconscious; it wasn’t very fair. I also remember getting a Holly Hobby doll, after the accident. I remember sitting in my parents’ bedroom playing with my Holly Hobby doll, while Stacey and her sisters called me names. Shortly afterwards, my Dad came home with a kid’s motorcycle helmet for me to wear while I rode my bike. It was very cool; it was purple with black flames on it and it sparkled. When my Dad was six, his oldest brother died of a fractured skull. He fell off farming machinery. It must have been really hard for my Dad to go through that and then have my accident happen. I also convinced my parents my bike was possessed—I would not ride it—so they bought me a different bike.
Kristen Nelson - Car Accident - Age 25
It was the morning of June 17, 2008. I worked at a state park, and part of my job was to clean the outhouses in the morning. I had just finished my rounds cleaning all the outhouses and was going back to the maintenance building on a gravel road; I was driving a bobcat utility truck. The front wheel of the truck locked while I was going around a curve, and I ended up going off an embankment. The vehicle landed on a giant boulder. The minute it landed on that boulder, I flew out the passenger side. All I remember is starting to fly out of the vehicle; then, the next thing I knew, I was waking up on my back, and my whole body was in excruciating pain. Later on, I heard that the plexi-glass window was knocked out, so they think that my head knocked it out when I was knocked unconscious. I had all the signs of a severe concussion, but because I was walking around, I don’t think that they associated this with the fact that I looked fine. I didn’t have a bump on my head; you wouldn’t know that anything was wrong. I got home, and I saw a doctor up here. He said I had a severe concussion and shouldn’t operate a vehicle. I did try to go back to work. I went back for about 10 days, and I couldn’t focus; I just had all these issues. It was so hard to explain to my supervisor, who was constantly asking, “What’s going on? Can you explain it to me?” I didn’t even know how to explain what was going on with me; all I could say was something is not right. Every time I went up to the hospital for physical therapy, I couldn’t figure out how to get back to my car, and the therapist had to walk me out of the building. I couldn’t remember how to get out of the building, and that’s when my doctor said there is more going on then what others were saying. About nine months after the accident, I started getting really bad migraines, and those have been my main issue ever since. I’m actually having a dog trained to alert me to when they come on, because I don’t get any warning signs. So, I’ll have a service dog, hopefully in the next year or so. It’s just been a really long process, and right from the get go, I lost a lot of friends. I feel like my family doesn’t fully understand what I go through on a daily basis, either. This past year, I’ve really tried to focus on what I need to function independently in life and what skills I still struggle with, and I’ve really honed in on that kind of stuff, which has been really helpful. It’s been such a hard, lonely path I’ve been on; I feel like the past four years I’ve just gotten so depressed, because I felt so misunderstood and isolated. I still get really bad anxiety attacks in grocery stores, and I think I get so over stimulated that, for some reason, it’s just too much. I have constant ringing in my ears, and I get migraines at least three times a week. I still have a limit of about 45 minutes; my attention and focus is definitely shorter. Right now, I use an Ipad, and that seems to work pretty well. I have alarms go off for everything, because I can’t remember. I feel like I’ve constantly had to battle with misunderstanding, and that’s been really hard. The majority of my friends I have now are ones that I’ve met after the accident, and they don’t know the before and after. Even with new friends that I have, it’s been this constant balance of how much do I tell about what’s really going on? That’s been my biggest thing—how much do I talk about what’s going on with me, health wise, in my friendships; who can I trust? I don’t want to be a burden to anybody; I don’t want my friends or family to have my issues on their shoulders, so I think there’s a lot of pride that has hindered me from seeking better support. I was still really fighting with wanting to be my old self, and I’m never going to be the Kristen I was on June 16, 2008; I’m never going to be that person again. Ultimate acceptance for my situation has been life changing for me. I think that there’s a grieving process with that too, because you’ve lost your old life, yourself. I really hung onto that, who I was, who I used to be. In the beginning, everyone was telling me that they expected a full recovery, and what I expected from a full recovery was to be how I was the day before the accident. What a full recovery really means is being able to function and hold down a job, but I’m not going to be who I was before. It took me a long time to understood that, and I always had the expectation that I would be like I was before. When you’re by yourself, you feel alone and you feel misunderstood; you don’t even understand what’s going on with yourself. With brain injuries there has to be a serious level of trust. It’s a hidden thing, and you need to have someone who is going to listen to you and advocate for you.
Hayden Cristaldi - Football - Age 17
How many concussions have I had? I have no idea. I’ve had one diagnosed concussion, but I know I’ve had many more than that, from football. I was probably 17. I was kneed in the side of my head, and the vision on my right side turned black and green, for a few seconds. I tried playing more, during that game, and found that I couldn’t remember the plays. I couldn’t remember to hold onto the ball. Every time I fell on the ground, I dropped the ball. I finally realized that something wasn’t right, and I pulled myself out of the game. From the beginning of football to the end of the season, I had a constant headache, from all the collisions. I don’t think I ever went to the doctor, but the EMT and sideline doctor were the one’s that diagnosed one collision as a concussion. After the diagnosed concussion, I had headaches, slow pupil dilation, and short-term memory loss during the game. I don’t remember if it just went back to normal. I have a bunch of memories that kind of have holes in them. I have some memory loss, and it’s hard to remember things. If I put any amount of pressure on my head, like if I’m leaning my head back on a wall, it will give me a headache instantly, from the pressure. I have a hard time, sometimes, figuring out what word I’m trying to say, or I stutter while saying it. I have a hard time focusing attention on one thing, for a long amount of time. It made studying and school a lot harder. I never really even paid attention or realized what all these challenges could have been from, until the past year. They all just started with football. I can’t say that they’ve drastically changed my life, but I’ve noticed a few of these symptoms still occur. In high school you notice constant headaches, and then I got into college and played two years in college, and the headaches were more severe. I was always kind of depressed and down and like I could never do anything right. That’s how I was during the first two years of college. Then, when I stopped playing football, I got significantly better. I still have headaches, if I get hit in the head even slightly. It was the repeated hits I took for years, and it was more progressive than overnight. It’s not like one-day it happened and then everything was changed; it’s just something I’ve lived with.
Sonny Pledger - Car Accident - Age 21
The photograph he is holding was taken the day before his accident
The words in quotations are Sonny’s words; the rest of his story was told by his Mother, Penny.
“My friend was drunk and driving.” They were at the Three Forks rodeo on July 18, 2010. He was six miles from home; that’s enough to make you sick right there. They were going 90 when they wrecked. The driver passed out and when one of the passengers woke him up, he swerved. They rolled eight times, and Sonny was ejected from the vehicle. He was on his back and his head hit the asphalt several times. He was sliding and the van was sliding, it stopped 18 inches from his body. They took him in an ambulance to Bozeman Deaconess, where they tried to stabilize him, and they couldn’t stabilize him enough to Life Flight him. They came and got me, and this was at 4 a.m., so they’d already been at it for two hours. Told me to get over there. When they got him to Billings, he was in the ICU for 23 days, and they told us to prepare to bury him, that he wasn’t going to make it. They told me if he did survive, he would be blind, he would never walk, most likely never talk. He proved them all wrong. So, we moved from there to assisted living; they almost killed him twice. I got him out of there quick. Almost lost him twice in 10 days. They OD’d him; they were supposed to give him 100 milligrams and they gave him 1000 of his seizure medication. He was in the hospital for 89 days; he came home on October 14th. On the 56th day he said his first word. “What did I say?” You said, “Mama, I love you.” Before that, you’d have to write it down and kind of guess what he was saying. He had to totally learn to walk again, eat again, and feed himself. His right side was like a stroke victim; his arm started to turn in, but we sat there and worked it everyday in the hospital. “This is probably the hardest thing I’ve had to do.” He has short-term memory loss—it’s the small things like where the bathroom is, where he put his cup, and did he take his pills? Long-term memory, he finally worked his way up to two years before the accident. He lost 80% in his right eye and 35% in his left. That’s as good as we can get it, and it’s better than what they said it would be. “I’m a survivor for sure.” He has to have 24-hour care. He has a Personal Care Assistant, and he has me. Nick works 30 hours a week with him, and the family takes the rest. He stutters a little more when he’s tired. “That’s gotten way better. I remember it was every word was like, but now it’s every once in a while.” He volunteers at the Heart of the Valley twice a week. “Eventually I’m going to get a new best friend, a service dog. I honestly can’t wait until the day, I’m not going to be able to sleep the night before.” He’s getting one in the spring. If he walks out of the house, he doesn’t know where to go. If he got out to the road, he wouldn’t know where the house was, he wouldn’t know which way was Bozeman, so it’s a real danger. Sunday he goes to hot springs to soak, Tuesday and Wednesday he works out there. And then he gets to soak and that’s his reward for working out. Tuesdays he has speech language therapy and then hot springs. Wednesday he has counseling and hot springs. Thursday is occupational therapy and physical therapy. And Saturdays is his day off. “One day off a week.” No friends hung around; they all split except one. Christopher, he’s been here the whole time. He was his Personal Care Assistant for a year and a half; he was here through the hard stuff. He had tons of friends, a real popular boy. He was the life of the party; get the party going kind of guy. “Someday I’m going to be all that again.” “I guess you could call me a comedian.” Some days he has rough days, ornery days. We had to move, we didn’t have enough room for him. He was 21 and moved out. It changed everybody’s life. He’s got a lot of brothers and sisters; he’s one of six—the second to the oldest. “For now, I’m trying to work on it so eventually I can move out on my own. And be my own person. And do my own thing. And find a girlfriend. And whenever I find this girlfriend, she is going to be my everything. She’s going to be my world and my everything.”
Kat McCord - Soccer - Age 16
When I was about a year and a half, I cracked my scull. The floor had been re-done, and we didn’t realize that the threshold was higher going out to the garage. I was in a rolly stroller, zippin around on the floor. My dad was out there and left the door open. I rolled out and fell right to the concrete. When I was in the 7th grade, I went to a summer camp. I was following these girls around and walked under a teeter totter right when this girl went up, and she came right back down on my head. I remember feeling exhausted after that; I was just miserable. My next two concussions were playing soccer; one when I was in the 8th grade and one my sophomore year in high school. Out of all the concussions I received, I think the worst was probably when I was a baby, and then my sophomore year in high school. It was in the middle of the game, and I was heading for the ball, and so was the opposing team. We basically collided and one player’s knee hit me in the face. I had loose teeth after that. I honestly don’t remember any of this; this is all from being told what happened. I was actually unconscious on the field for maybe a period of three to five seconds. And I had no idea what happened, when I got back up. I don’t remember most of the game, even what happened before it. Immediately after this last concussion, I felt somewhat nauseous and really angry. Anger was my main symptom, afterwards. My mood was pretty altered; any loud music or bright lights bothered me. Headaches were pretty common, which I’d never had before. Mainly, if I have a really long day at work and I have stuff to do after, it’s to the point where I can hardly keep up a conversation. I’m just that exhausted. Once it’s over; once I’ve reached the wall and I keep pushing past it, it’s just like it’s done, I’m done. I don’t handle stress as well; I have to sit and think about the steps I’m going to take to unwind and relax and get my thoughts in order. If I’m around a lot of people and a lot of conversations, I’ll find myself hearing other conversations, and then try and keep on track with the conversation I’m having. It doesn’t always connect in my brain. Immediately after the concussion during soccer, things changed. I became a lot more reclusive; I would go on really long walks by myself. I had to have separation from my family, because I didn’t want to socialize or interact with anybody. When you’re young, a lot of times kids can do well without sleep, but if I don’t get sleep, I literally will not function. I just can’t shut my brain off; I keep thinking about something and try and organize my brain. When I’m frustrated now, I kind of shut down; I have to completely leave the situation. I think the effects from concussions are cumulative, and I think the amount of concussions I’ve received, and the effects I live with, is a testimony to that.
