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My Brother Almost Died and When He Woke Up, He Spoke in Tongues
True Story of Brain Injury
A few months after I had started law school, my mother called me in the wee hours of the morning as I was studying. My brother had been in an accident and she and my father were taking a military plane to see him.
My brother was 20 years old and was stationed at Ramstein Airforce Base in Germany. He had been working double shifts (that’s 16 hours) during the Bosnian Air Lifts and was on his way back to his base. It was raining on the autobahn and he had crashed into a truck on the side of the road that had it’s tail down. The tail cracked through the windshield and hit my brother’s head.
When my parents got the call, they were told that my brother probably would not make it by the time they landed in Germany. But they rushed over anyway, praying all the way.
I wanted to go too. But my mom insisted that I wouldn’t be able to help and I had exams to prepare for. That’s when she admitted that he was not expected to survive. At that point, law school didn’t matter. I cried for my brother who had always wanted a family of his own. Who had plans to go to college on the GI Bill after four years of service. He’s only a year and half younger than me. I was numb for a long time, I lost track of time. One of my best friends had lost her parents…
