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AJC.com > Iraq coverage > Blog > Archives > 2005 > October > 08 > Entry

Strenuous rehab can’t discourage wounded soldier

By DAVE HIRSCHMAN | Saturday, October 8, 2005, 03:55 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Washington — In a windowless storeroom deep inside Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Spc. Richard Ingram rummages through a pile of FedEx boxes.

“I know my arm’s in here somewhere,” he says. “I’ve just got to find it.”

With the anticipation of a kid on Christmas morning, the 22-year-old Army scout from LaGrange, whose left arm was severed by a roadside bomb in Iraq, hunts for the package containing his first custom-made prosthetic.

Rick McKay /AJC Spc. Richard Ingram, 22, who lost his arm in Iraq, plans to take medical retirement and return to college.

The high-tech, computerized limb will allow Ingram to resume mountain biking, fly fishing and kayaking. The new arm also promises to end his self-imposed exile here.

Ingram refuses to return to Georgia until he has mastered the electronic arm.

“I’m not going home until I’ve got my arm and can use it well,” says Ingram, a quiet but driven outdoorsman. “Without it, going home would be a waste of time.”

Ingram, a member of the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team, is among more than 4,400 wounded American service members who have been treated at Walter Reed since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Only the most serious cases come to this 113-acre facility — which specializes in amputees and patients with head injuries — to begin their long physical and emotional recovery.

After double-checking every box in the hospital storeroom, Ingram comes up empty.

“I can’t believe my arm’s not here yet,” he said. “I hope FedEx hasn’t lost it.”

Ingram is a member of the Griffin-based 108th Cavalry Regiment. He was the gunner in a Humvee with two other soldiers when they were hit with a roadside bomb on a rural road south of Baghdad on July 20.

Rick McKay /AJC Ingram uses his prosthetic arm to move pegs across a board during a therapy session.

The explosion hurled the 12,000-pound, heavily armored vehicle 10 feet in the air. Ingram was thrown out of the Humvee as it rolled over, smashing his left arm.

He said he never lost consciousness.

“I didn’t think there was any way I was going to live through it when the truck started rolling,” he said. “But when I got thrown out, I was just overjoyed. It was clear that I hadn’t fulfilled my purpose in this life. Even though I was hurt, I knew I’d get to keep doing the things I love so much. I was being given another chance at life.”

Sgt. Joe Brown of Dallas, Ga., also was in the Humvee. He suffered a broken jaw, broken ribs and deep bruises and lacerations. Both men were flown to a military hospital in Baghdad. The driver was unhurt.

Within days, both injured men returned to the U.S. for medical treatment. Brown, 39, a father of two teenage daughters, has largely recovered from his wounds and is preparing to return to Iraq. He talks to Ingram almost daily by phone and credits the young soldier’s “innate stubbornness” for his recovery.

“Some people want to crawl into a bottle and sedate themselves from reality,” Brown says. “But Richard’s got a new sense of purpose. He figures he’s not dead yet, so he may as well enjoy what he’s got.”

‘Not the way I’m made’

Ingram, a former high school soccer player, keeps a grueling pace in daily physical and occupational training sessions. He supplements them with weightlifting, target shooting and exhausting cross-country runs.

In a typical session, Ingram and 2nd Lt. Amy Weill, an Army therapist, engage in a contest that looks like an unfair arm wrestling match. Weill pushes down with two hands on the stump that remains of Ingram’s left arm while he pushes back.

Walt Young/Special A jubilant Ingram enjoys fly-fishing at Spruce Creek in Pennsylvania. Handling the net is guide Tom Caufman.

The muscles in the amputated arm have atrophied, and he needs to regain strength to operate the electronic arm. The fleshy stump below his elbow has to be firm and toned for the prosthetic to work properly.

“He’s a strong guy, and that’s important,” Weill says. “Weightlifting is his favorite part, but it’s also the hardest and most demanding. The thing that gets him through it, though, is he sees he’s making measurable progress.”

When Ingram finishes lifting weights, he cajoles two other soldiers into joining him for more physical contests.

Sgt. Robert Blikley, 26, of Spartanburg, S.C., who also lost his left arm in a roadside bomb attack, agrees to a target-shooting competition. And Jose Ramos, 25, of El Paso says he will accompany Ingram on a 90-minute run that evening through the wooded grounds of the complex that offers stunning views of the Washington skyline.

Ingram’s favorite activity, however, is fishing, and he regularly organizes weekend outings to trout streams in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia. So far, he’s netted and released a 24-inch rainbow trout and a 27-inch brown.

He has developed a one-handed fly casting technique and insists on tying his own knots – even when it’s faster for someone with two hands to do it for him.

“The truth is I almost never miss having a second arm or hand,” he said, “until someone tries to help me.”

Ingram invites other amputees on weekend outings, but many decline — and those are the soldiers he feels sorry for.

“They spend their time sitting around trying to figure out what pills go best with beer,” he said. “I don’t go for that. There’s so much to do here, there’s no way I could just sit around. That’s not the way I’m made.”

‘I’d like to go back’

Ingram and Blikley shoot M-16 rifles for more than two hours at a video range with sensors that measure the mechanics of how they hold, aim and fire the weapons.

Both shoot well enough to remain front-line soldiers. And both are eligible to return to active duty if they meet the physical requirements and want to go back.

Ingram says he plans to medically retire from the military and resume engineering studies at North Georgia College & State University in Dahlonega, where he was a junior before the 48th Brigade was mobilized for duty.

He holds out the possibility of returning to the Army after he graduates — if he can do it on his terms.

He wanted to become a Ranger before he was injured. No one with a missing limb has ever graduated from the punishing course, but Ingram hasn’t given up on the idea.

“I don’t want to work in administration,” he says. “And I don’t want to work in a [tactical operations center]. But if I could do the same kinds of things I was doing before, and do them as well as I was doing them, then I’d like to go back.”

Amputees used to be automatically deemed unfit for military service, but that policy has changed.

“If they can meet the physical standards for military duty, they can stay in,” said Col. William Howard, chief of occupational therapy at Walter Reed. “We want to help them achieve their goals and accomplish the things that are important to them. If they want to stay in the military, we’ll do everything we can to help.”

Ingram’s sister, Meridith, 24, an Emory University grad and pharmaceutical sales representative in Atlanta, tells him he’s given enough.

“I’d hate to see him go back,” she says. “I know he’d be good at it. I know he’d meet the physical challenges. But as his big sister, I’d worry about him. I’m afraid of what could happen.”

Ingram downplays the sacrifices he’s already made.

“I wasn’t in Iraq very long,” he says. “I hardly had time to do anything.”

‘Beginning to accept it’

On his next trip to the hospital storeroom, Ingram discovers the package he’s been waiting for. With the help of a hospital technician, he opens the box and removes the custom-made arm. The hand is flesh colored, the forearm clear plastic with blue and red wires visible inside.

“Look at those fingernails!” he says.

Ingram slides on the arm with the help of a hospital technician who asks whether he is able to open and close the fingers. Ingram reaches out with the mechanical hand and playfully tries to squeeze the male technician’s chest.

Next, he tries to pick up a can of Copenhagen smokeless tobacco from a nearby table.

Tasks that would have been second nature to an able-bodied person take tremendous strain and concentration. Ingram says small frustrations sometimes bring unanticipated flashes of anger.

“I expect to be able to do the same things I’ve always done, even though I know I’ll never be the same again,” he says. “But I’m beginning to accept it. I see other people missing legs, arms and eyes, and I know I got off light.”

Paddy Rossbach, chief executive of the Amputee Coalition of America, says injured soldiers go through stages of loss that include denial, bargaining, anger, grief and acceptance.

“It helps that they have people around them who are dealing with the same things,” says Rossbach, whose organization provides volunteers, usually Vietnam veteran amputees, who talk with the wounded soldiers.

“Their peers help them connect to their inner strength and drive,” says Rossbach, who lost a leg at age 6. “They show they can still contribute and lead fulfilling lives that may, in some ways, be more satisfying than the lives they were living before.”

Despite grievous wounds, soldier patients at Walter Reed show each other no overt sympathy. They tease one other in ways that seem heartless.

When one falls down a flight of stairs at a local bar, the others laugh hysterically and no one goes to the fallen soldier’s aid. Another looks at his armless and legless comrades, shakes his head and calls them “gimps.” A one-armed soldier with a metal mechanism for a hand wears a black T-shirt proclaiming he’s “got a mean right hook.” Parlor games like Foosball, Ping-Pong and checkers take on slapstick dimensions.

Ingram says the soldiers revel in their rough humor.

“Our jokes may seem cruel to most people,” he said. “But some of the things that go on here are just funny.”

Ingram sometimes feels excruciating “phantom pain” in his missing arm from frayed nerves, or flinches when it appears something will hit the spot his left arm used to be.

Other times, he completely forgets the arm is gone.

“I’ll be reading a book or thinking about something else and I’ll realize, ‘Hey, that arm really isn’t there anymore.’”

‘I’ll get on my bike …’

In Ingram’s room, clothes are heaped on chairs, beds and the floor, and ESPN blares constantly.

“This mess has nothing to do with my injury,” he tells a visitor. “I didn’t fold clothes before I got hurt.”

Ingram’s mother, Janice, says her son’s injury hasn’t altered his independence. She and her husband, Richard L. Ingram, a physician, must resist the urge to do things for him during their visits to Washington.

“There are times when you’ve got to force yourself to stand back, cross your arms and let him do things his way,” she said. “He makes it very clear that if he wants your help, he’ll ask for it. And he doesn’t ask very often.”

A hospital technician who is also an amputee tells Ingram the high-tech arm will require frequent adjustments during the first few weeks. The technician reshapes the part that fits over Ingram’s stump and promises the final version will be lighter and more responsive. He even volunteers to paint it to match Ingram’s fair skin, freckles and all.

But Ingram says he’s not concerned about appearances. He’s looking forward to the freedom the new arm will provide.

Most amputees stay here for about a year. But Ingram has already decided to return to college in January.

“I just can’t wait to get back to North Georgia,” he said. “I’ll get on my bike with some fishing gear and just disappear into the woods for days at a time.”

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