(gentle music)
- Oh nice.
- Show your pretty mustache.
- I'm Jaret Yohman.
I'm an electrician in the Navy.
my first duty station was in Pearl Harbor.
There's a little island off the east coast of Oahu
called Chinaman's Hat.
Me and a couple of friends like went up there.
I ran off by myself and my roommate even
went to like check up on me
and saw me like at the bottom
and then ran over to my friends,
it was like, I think Jaret fell.
- A helicopter took them off the island in a stretcher,
which they hung down the stretcher, got him on it,
got him to the shore.
And then by ambulance and they got him to the hospital.
- He had traumatic brain injuries of every kind.
Doctors basically told us that there was like a 20% chance
of anything behind the eyes,
when he would actually open his eyes.
There was no signs of anything.
He was just completely unconscious,
and it got worse because like his feet started to drop
and things quit moving that did move.
Then we were afraid that his brain had gotten worse.
- He eventually got to where they wanted
to get him back state side,
Pat Rod reached out to us
and he gave us a choice of the five different VA hospitals
that could work with him.
And for us living in Ohio,
Virginia being the closest one,
that made the most sense.
But the more that we investigated it,
we seen that they were top ranked.
- And that was like, it was just a godsend.
It was like the military dream team just came in.
- We got the medical records
and it pretty much was the worst case scenario.
Traumatic brain injury, multiple organs damaged,
multiple fractures.
When he got here, he was still in a coma.
Not responsive. Maybe some eye gaze that kind of thing,
but not like he is now.
A lot of times with our patients,
when they first start out
and they're in their Emerging Consciousness program,
as they emerge, you can do things
like sitting them up on the edge of the bed,
getting them up in the chair.
That will stimulate a lot of things.
They begin them moving them into the gymnasium
where it's a little more distracting.
The occupational therapist will start engaging them
with moving their pants, fine motor movements.
And then you'll see him when,
especially like when he plays Mastermind
to be able to pick up the small little pieces
and put them in a precise location
that requires so much cognitive ability.
As far as coordinating your hand and eye movement,
it's been pretty miraculous to watch this happen.
- There was never any downtime
when they got him here
right away, we're gonna start working with him
and we're gonna get him out of bed,
we're gonna get him doing things.
He will be busy all day, five days a week, six days a week,
and keep working his mind to keep working his body.
- One of my therapists, JT, he said like,
well, no matter, whatever way you cut it,
you're part of a family now.
I couldn't say it better myself.
Literally I have my life to thank them for you know.
The support and what they do for me every day.
I like I can't begin to thank them for.
(cheering)