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Off road in the California desert, Jesse Williamson is getting ready for the Baja 500, a grueling 500-mile dirt bike race that takes place on Mexico’s Baja California peninsula.
But Williamson also faces an additional challenge.
The retired Marine lance corporal, currently living in Wildomar, California, lost his legs below the knee from an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in August 2009. All his buddies in the vehicle died.
It transformed his life in a flash.
When he came back home, as he tried to recover, he got hooked on pain medications, slipped into depression and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
“The things I was doing up there — not too proud of. I got into doing heroin,” Williamson, 23, said.
His friend 1st Sgt. Nick Hamm, a fellow Marine also from Wildomar, California, who was also wounded twice in combat, came to the rescue.
Hamm recruited Williamson to join Warrior Built, a foundation he created to provide new motivation, camaraderie and support as veterans transition back to life after war.
The foundation provides vocational therapy in the Warrior Built Garage, a space devoted to off-road biking in Lake Elsinore, California. It is staffed entirely by combat veterans.
“Every time I am able to help someone else, I get a little piece of myself back,” Hamm, 37, said.
Thirty-five combat vets work at the garage rebuilding bikes and their lives. The foundation aims to help 100 veterans by the end of the year.
The Video and rest of story here:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/...ed-to-make-motorcross-history-on-prosthetics/
Off road in the California desert, Jesse Williamson is getting ready for the Baja 500, a grueling 500-mile dirt bike race that takes place on Mexico’s Baja California peninsula.
But Williamson also faces an additional challenge.
The retired Marine lance corporal, currently living in Wildomar, California, lost his legs below the knee from an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in August 2009. All his buddies in the vehicle died.
It transformed his life in a flash.
When he came back home, as he tried to recover, he got hooked on pain medications, slipped into depression and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
“The things I was doing up there — not too proud of. I got into doing heroin,” Williamson, 23, said.
His friend 1st Sgt. Nick Hamm, a fellow Marine also from Wildomar, California, who was also wounded twice in combat, came to the rescue.
Hamm recruited Williamson to join Warrior Built, a foundation he created to provide new motivation, camaraderie and support as veterans transition back to life after war.
The foundation provides vocational therapy in the Warrior Built Garage, a space devoted to off-road biking in Lake Elsinore, California. It is staffed entirely by combat veterans.
“Every time I am able to help someone else, I get a little piece of myself back,” Hamm, 37, said.
Thirty-five combat vets work at the garage rebuilding bikes and their lives. The foundation aims to help 100 veterans by the end of the year.
The Video and rest of story here:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/...ed-to-make-motorcross-history-on-prosthetics/
