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You have no idea... The guy is dead now and buried somewhere around San Marcos. It's on my list of places to visit soon. 

The 48 hours episode is called "Witness" and it came out sometime in 2003 or 04. I haven't been able to find the video online but it's been awhile since I looked. I know there's a synopsis out there somewhere though. 

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4 hours ago, thestud said:

Landing a medical helicopter in a field at 2am for a kid that threw gas on a bonfire. 3rd degree burns from head to toe, not breathing and at least 40 of his drunk high school classmates looking on.

Mom muttering in Spanish at you as she hands her 4 month old pulseless and apneic baby to you and then casually walks away. Later mom admitted to smothering the kid, showed zero signs of remorse.

The 16 year old girl that hung herself in her parents garage because the other girls at school were giving her a hard time. She's alive today because of me, but is she really alive? She'll never speak, walk or eat on her own again. She wears a diaper now and will require around the clock care for the rest of the time she is "alive".

Tons of others similar but the one that sticks with me the most is the 8th grade football player that was paralyzed from the neck down....he kept asking me why he couldn't feel his legs. In general, to see a young person taken before their time is never easy. To sit and talk to them as they die, while you furiously work to do everything in your power to fend off the reaper only to realize it is all in vain.  The fear and terror in his voice as he talked and we worked is something that will haunt me until I die. 

Seems you and I have drank from the same cup...…….

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Landing a medical helicopter in a field at 2am for a kid that threw gas on a bonfire. 3rd degree burns from head to toe, not breathing and at least 40 of his drunk high school classmates looking on.
Mom muttering in Spanish at you as she hands her 4 month old pulseless and apneic baby to you and then casually walks away. Later mom admitted to smothering the kid, showed zero signs of remorse.
The 16 year old girl that hung herself in her parents garage because the other girls at school were giving her a hard time. She's alive today because of me, but is she really alive? She'll never speak, walk or eat on her own again. She wears a diaper now and will require around the clock care for the rest of the time she is "alive".
Tons of others similar but the one that sticks with me the most is the 8th grade football player that was paralyzed from the neck down....he kept asking me why he couldn't feel his legs. In general, to see a young person taken before their time is never easy. To sit and talk to them as they die, while you furiously work to do everything in your power to fend off the reaper only to realize it is all in vain.  The fear and terror in his voice as he talked and we worked is something that will haunt me until I die. 
Thanks for all your hard work, as futile as it can seem at times. I know exactly how you feel.
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11 minutes ago, trauma babe said:
14 hours ago, thestud said:
Landing a medical helicopter in a field at 2am for a kid that threw gas on a bonfire. 3rd degree burns from head to toe, not breathing and at least 40 of his drunk high school classmates looking on.
Mom muttering in Spanish at you as she hands her 4 month old pulseless and apneic baby to you and then casually walks away. Later mom admitted to smothering the kid, showed zero signs of remorse.
The 16 year old girl that hung herself in her parents garage because the other girls at school were giving her a hard time. She's alive today because of me, but is she really alive? She'll never speak, walk or eat on her own again. She wears a diaper now and will require around the clock care for the rest of the time she is "alive".
Tons of others similar but the one that sticks with me the most is the 8th grade football player that was paralyzed from the neck down....he kept asking me why he couldn't feel his legs. In general, to see a young person taken before their time is never easy. To sit and talk to them as they die, while you furiously work to do everything in your power to fend off the reaper only to realize it is all in vain.  The fear and terror in his voice as he talked and we worked is something that will haunt me until I die. 

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Thanks for all your hard work, as futile as it can seem at times. I know exactly how you feel.

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22 hours ago, BurntOrangeCrush said:

Well, to be honest, I have no memory of either of my TBI's. Just the aftermath. I did have loss of executive function, and you're right, that's the worst part. Mine happened 7 years ago, and I have gotten a lot better. I have to take meds twice a day. My neurologist tells me that when you have a frontal lobe injury or when cells die, that after time, your brain redirects and corrects functions as time goes on. Initially I had to wear a leg brace because my foot wouldn't function properly, I had shitty balance, and I could not feel some skin on the left side of my body. 

Then out of the blue, my foot could function and I regained some sensation on my left side.

The brain is complicated as hell and every case is different. You have had a traumatic injury and your symptoms are a lot more complicated than mine.

But don't lose hope man. The brain and body have a biological way of correcting and surviving. Trust your doctors and stay positive. That's the hardest part. I will send good thoughts your way. 

I think I'm pretty much past it. It's been 2 1/2 years, and my recovery is pretty complete. The Dr's said I could have some lingering shit, but outside of having the tip of the tongue (TOT) every day, nothing has really stuck.

I really think I got lucky as compared to a lot of people with tbi and their emotional struggles. 

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On May 20, 2018 at 3:13 PM, Quasimofo said:

I got that phone call all parents dread, and hope never comes. You think you can imagine what that feels like, but, I promise, you can't.

Four months later, I had a heart attack. The grief almost killed me. It affects me every day. You have no idea how much you can cry as a grown man.

I've always had a positive outlook on life. I can find a positive or humor in just about anything. Most of my posts here are usually short jokes, that probably are only funny to me. I cannot imagine how someone with depression would handle a loss like that.

 

Terribly sorry for you and family. Have had friends go through this. Prayers man.

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Parents divorced when I was 1, we were passed back in forth between parents for a while until finally landing with my mother as a young kid since she remarried first. Her second husband was supposedly involved with the mob, and after getting that annulled, she married a Vietnam vet. This guy was brutal to us, ended up in Hunstville for life sentences for child abuse, molestation, and statutory rape on us. In one of life's little coincidences, my older brother took a job as a Corrections officer and got assigned to his cell block 20 something years later, dude was still there, didn't recognize him, and had pictures of us up in his cell since "family pictures" were allowed. Brother got to toss his cell and conveniently threw away all the pictures in the process. Quit shortly after. Mother finally remarried and moved to another state with a decent guy, no hard feelings, she was a victim too. Moved in with my father and his new family after that and inadvertently broke his second marriage up suddenly having a bunch of messed up kids thrust upon her. She wasn't a fan of us, and ended up being a cheating whore anyway.

Let's see what else. I got robbed at gunpoint once in Houston at a Pizza Hut as a young teenage, where I was thrown into the deep freezer in the back with the employees and other customers until the cops came and let us out. That was entertaining. Followed my father's footsteps and joined the Marines in 2000. A year later 9/11 happened and I spent a couple years fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, where no small amount of events that could be described as "traumatic" occurred. Also, somewhere within my 3 deployments to those craptastic areas I developed "Gulf War Syndrome," which gave me chronic gastrointestinal and nervous system issues. I'm sure I could probably remember more particular events, but like Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand fortunately I also developed memory loss out there, so silver lining.

Edited by MillerEP
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