A Time to Heal

Soldiers With Amputations Rebuild Lives at the Center for the Intrepid

By Janet Boivin, RN

Army Corporal Shane Parsons and Specialist Adrian Garcia are eagerly waiting for their new legs to arrive at the U.S. military's state-of-the-art rehabilitation center for wounded veterans in San Antonio.

Garcia, 20, and Parsons, 23, each lost both legs above the knee to explosive devices in Iraq. Garcia had been in Iraq for only 20 days when a rocket-propelled grenade ripped through the Humvee in which he was riding. "I knew something bad was happening," he says. "It was the most painful thing I ever felt."

Parsons was a month away from finishing his time in Iraq when his Humvee was demolished by a sophisticated roadside bomb. "[After the explosion] I was trying to put a tourniquet on my leg," he says. "You're supposed to take your boot off, and when I did, everything came with it."

Both men have been at Brooke Army Medical Center and The Center for the Intrepid, a rehabilitation center located on the same campus, for more than a year, Parsons almost two years now, recovering from their physical and psychological wounds. The circumstances of how Garcia and Parsons lost their legs are similar, but different factors have shaped their physical and mental rehabilitation.

Although the explosion that destroyed Garcia's legs would have been sufficient to cause post-traumatic stress disorder, he was not in Iraq long enough to have collected other disturbing memories of combat. He says he has not been diagnosed with the disorder. Parsons already had enough combat memories to trigger PTSD without the physical trauma of losing both legs. In addition, the blast wave from the explosion caused severe traumatic brain injury, from which he would also have to recover. Parsons has been diagnosed with PTSD.

As devastating as the loss of both legs would be for anyone, Parsons and Garcia had some advantages as they began rebuilding their lives. They were young, healthy, and in top physical shape when wounded. They also come from a military culture that demands discipline, hard work, and the setting and achieving of specific goals.

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