The Brain Injury Data Project: One Soldier's Story

"You've been blown up, dude." Those were the first words Corporal Toran Gaal heard upon awaking from a coma in a hospital bed in Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Gaal was grateful that his brother, a former Marine, was so blunt. A month earlier, right before dawn on June 26, 2011, the 24-year-old Marine squad leader had stepped on an improvised explosive device in Sangin, Afghanistan. When he opened his eyes at Walter Reed, Gaal wondered why he wasn't in country. Who was leading his men?...

Gaal's resilience can seem miraculous. He thinks of it as a trait he earned on the basketball court in adolescence and one that the military further "refined." Either way, his grit was a force that Gaal's doctors at the VA Palo Alto Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center, where he spent the first five months of his recovery, did not take for granted. Instead, it became leverage in their mission to see that Gaal's healing surpassed the average outcome for his injuries...