Ohio veterans connect with resources through Dublin-based support group
Seventeen years ago, U.S. Army and Ohio National Guard veteran Corey O’Brien helped save the lives of other veterans, but he credits the Dublin-based Resurrecting Lives Foundation with helping to save his own life.
O’Brien, 44, said the organization led him to treatment that has benefited him and his family, including his wife and five children, after two tours in Iraq, which included disposing of undetonated improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.
“Being an engineer, we built a big blast pit, wired it up and blew it in place. I’m not a hero, I just did my job. They said, ‘Hey, these need to go,’ and I made them disappear,” said O’Brien, a biology and environmental science teacher at Hamilton Township High School, in south Columbus, where he is also the school’s Purple Star liaison.
O’Brien is also a member of the Resurrecting Lives Foundation’s board of advisers.
At Dublin’s Memorial Day parade in 2017, O’Brien met Dr. Chrisanne Gordon, founder of the Resurrecting Lives Foundation, a Dublin-based, nonprofit veteran support organization focused specifically on treating discharged veterans who have sustained a traumatic brain injury, or TBI.
It was there that Gordon spoke about a need to not only thank veterans, but a call to take care of veterans, summarizing the mission of the Resurrecting Lives Foundation.
O’Brien said the speech was so moving “that I felt compelled to go up and thank her for all she has done. I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for everything she has done through the Resurrecting Lives Foundation, including my recovery through a transcendental mediation program for veterans enabled though the foundation," O’Brien said.
"It outfitted me with a mechanism to navigate life's obstacles," he said.
The program is well-suited for many veterans because it can be practiced at home, on one's own schedule, typically for a 20-minute period, twice a day, O'Brien said.
The program has enabled O’Brien to sleep, concentrate and communicate better, along with numerous other behavioral improvements that have benefited his family and career, he said.
While O’Brien is being treated by David Kidd, a veteran, he credits the opportunity to his “chance meeting” with Gordon and lauds the program as an "excellent and little-known resource" that is valuable if it can "change the trajectory" of even one veteran's life for the better.
That the Resurrecting Lives Foundation exists at all could stem from the death of a 20-year-old U.S. Army sergeant 14 years ago in Iraq, which was a catalyst event to the creation of the foundation.
Gordon, who is also author of “Turn the Lights On: A Physician’s Personal Journey from the Darkness of Traumatic Brain Injury to Hope, Healing and Recovery,” said the first steps toward realizing the foundation came after the death of her friend’s son in Iraq in 2008, and the death of another friend’s son two years later in Afghanistan.
“I honor their lives by caring for their brothers and sisters who return,” specifically veterans coping with the effects of a TBI sustained while serving in the military, said Gordon, who herself sustained a TBI from a home accident.
On Jan 9, 2008, 20-year-old U.S. Army Sgt. Zachary McBride and five other soldiers in his detachment were killed when a bomb exploded inside a house in Sensil, north of Baghdad.
According to McBride’s obituary, McBride, upon graduating from an Oregon high school in 2005, turned down college scholarships to enlist in the U.S. Army, motivated to do so after watching the events of 9/11 unfold on television in his junior high school classroom.
On July 19, 2010, 27-year-old U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Brian Piercy, serving in the 82nd Airborne Division, was killed by an IED detonated in the Arghandab River Valley, in Afghanistan.
Both soldiers were the sons of Gordon’s friends.
In the ensuing four years, Gordon, a practicing physician, was treating veterans and also volunteering to perform TBI evaluations of veterans at hospitals where she said she realized instances where mild TBI diagnoses may have missed.
At that time, medications were the primary treatment for brain disorders and often masked or aggravated the symptoms, Gordon said.
Gordon said it was first in honor of McBride that she began volunteering to screen veterans at the Chalmers P. Wylie VA Outpatient Clinic in Columbus, and continuing after McBride’s death, she learned more about TBI-related injuries soldiers had sustained after being exposed to IED blasts.
“I was called to action when the veterans (returning) from Iraq and Afghanistan were being accused of ‘faking’ cognitive difficulties because of IED blasts, (coupled with having) normal MRIs,” Gordon said.
“(But) I knew, as both a physician and a patient, that a normal MRI is the usual presentation in what we term a ‘mild TBI’ and it means virtually nothing about what damage has been done to the brain by a blast,” Gordon said.
To address that, more complex testing, such as diffusion tensor imaging, or a DTI MRI, is required to “see microscopic and pathway injuries.”
Gordon recalled about seven veterans she treated who described symptoms she said inspired her to “set out to prove the existence of brain injuries and their ties to IED blasts,” Gordon said.
At a time when concern about veterans with TBI symptoms was growing in the medical community, it was also growing in the veteran community, Gordon said.
Among those concerned about his fellow veterans was Ed Heckathorn, 49, a Pickerington resident and 1991 graduate of Reynoldsburg High School, who is a deputy with the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office.
Heckathorn served in the U.S. Army from 1992 to 1994 before beginning his current 23-year career in law enforcement. He also served in the U.S. Army Reserve from 1994 to 2004.
While being treated by Gordon for a joint injury, Heckathorn said their conversations turned toward his time in the military and he realized how his military service – and those of other veterans Gordon had treated – could have lasting effects.
“I once knew myself as a 20-something and did not think of (my military service) causing any long-term injuries, (but) it can catch up with you later in life if you do not address it,” said Heckathorn, who parachuted as a member of the U.S. Army Rangers.
In sharing his own experience and learning about those of other veterans, Heckathorn began working with Gordon on her mission to bring awareness to undiagnosed TBIs soldiers had sustained.
Such conditions can go undiagnosed and untreated after a soldier’s transition from military to civilian life, Heckathorn said.
While obvious physical injuries are addressed, other ones, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, and TBI-related injuries, can be overlooked, according to Heckathorn.
“There is a gap there,” said Heckathorn, a member of the Resurrecting Lives Foundation’s board of advisers.
Gordon’s effort to shore that gap includes her production of a 2013 documentary, “Operation Resurrection.” The Resurrecting Lives Foundation, established as a nonprofit in July 2014, is named for it.
Today, the Resurrecting Lives Foundation continues to raise awareness of veterans experiencing TBI symptoms, lobbying for legislation that supports their cause, participating in the effort of other organizations to raise awareness of the same issue and referring veterans to a myriad of support and resources.
“In many instances, veterans feel they have exhausted conventional routes for getting services through local VAs and clinics. We collaborate to find those services for veterans who are still struggling with the invisible wounds of war from TBI and PTSD,” Gordon said.
The organization has reached veterans throughout Ohio and 29 states, according to Gordon.
For further information about the Resurrecting Lives Foundation, visit resurrectinglives.org, or email info@resurrectinglives.org.
@ThisWeekCorvo
This article originally appeared on ThisWeek: Ohio veterans connect with resources through Dublin-based support group
