Craig Sears

My name is Craig Sears I was involved in a life changing motorcycle accident July 9 1987 the day i got my Traumatic Brain Injury As I was coming over a blind spot of a hill, there was a gentleman and his wife pulling into an 'Exit Only'. I was unable to stop and I was thrown an estimated 40 feet over on-coming traffic, being thrown down head first into a curb. I had just turned twenty years old and I had started out making a very good life for myself. I had and have a great supportive family. I had the American dream; I'll leave that up to you to fill it in because I had everything a man could have possibly wanted; and in a heart beat it was all gone. I woke up out of a coma after being revived and going through many surgeries in St. Vincent's Hospital, in Bridgeport, CT. From there, I was transferred to Gaylord Rehabilitation Center in Wallingford, CT. While I was in this treatment center, I had to relearn everything about life down to using the bathroom on my own all over again. There, I was fighting against the physical pain, and the pain of not knowing who I was. As time went by, I started to fight against getting help. I constantly would take off out of the center in my wheelchair and would be brought back by the police. Until one day, I had rolled out down to a corner bar, and The Center finally got tired of me taking off all the time and they decided to transfer me out to a locked, mental health ward in Bridgeport, CT. The reason I was sent to this ward was because there was no other services offered for people with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). After being in the mental ward for nine months, I began to regain some memory and I knew this wasn't for me. So I started to call around to town officials, State Government, to ask them how to get out of the ward. The ward was holding me against my will and I knew I didn't need to be there, I did know that I needed help in other areas but it was not a mental health issue I was going through. After getting through to the CT Governor's office and I had shared my story with one of his representatives. They got a hold of the hospital, set up a jury room filled with my family, doctors, and a representative from the state office whom I don't recall. All the while, I was verbally expressing that I wanted out of the ward. In order to be taken out of there, I had to have a place to go and my only option was my family and I did not want to burden them with the pain that I was going through. I ended up in a one-room efficiency apartment in the beginning of the hollow of Bridgeport. At the time it was a major drug trafficking building with rats, roaches, and prostitutes filling it. There was no other place for me to go, no help at all, my family had tried everything to get me help. There was no group homes, no services offered, nothing. Because I had fought through the rehabilitation I still did not know how to do the basic functions of life like walk, talk, and shower. I would wander the streets trying to regain some kind of memory. I would watch other people to see what they were doing, how they were acting in order to regain memory of anything that I knew how to do before the accident. I knew at this time this was not who I was. Things began to improve. My family got me a weight set, my father bought me a bicycle and I started volunteering at St. Vincent's Hospital because I knew that I could go into the physical therapy rooms. Learn what they were doing for rehabilitation and go back home at night to do the exercises on my own in order to regain my strength and abilities. I had over-worked myself physically so as time went on, I found that I was spitting out blood and my body was in terrible pain, it would hurt to the touch. I didn't know better, I didn't realize I was harming myself rather than helping and improving. My mother had to take me many times to the hospital because I couldn't walk or move. One day, I was leaving St. Vincent's after volunteering for that day for their transportation department and I saw a lady fall to the floor. My instincts were to grab a wheelchair and put her in it and run to the emergency department. Because I had ran to the emergency department, they called me the next day and told me not to return. There was a lot of other pain from being turned away, people always assumed that I was drinking or using drugs because I would slur my words and my equilibrium was all off because of my TBI. After living in Bridgeport and remembering little things from watching other people and always trying to look at the good things in life; I started wondering what it would be like to get out of where I was. I asked my family for help to get out of where I was living. They got me a number of apartments and anything I wanted or needed. I would move into a different place thinking it would help me by being in a better environment. I would temporarily feel like things were changing, until one day I decided I wanted to get out of Bridgeport so I moved to Westport. After being there for a little while, things got better but I had learned a wrong way of thinking to solve my problems. Perhaps from being in the wrong areas, I started drinking and getting into drugs. I thought it would help me cope with the pain by letting me forget all that I went through. Everything I had fought for, I started to lose. I found myself alone even more and getting into trouble, ending up in numerous mental health facilities all over the state because there was no help for TBI survivors. Until one day I ended up in prison. I feel like I was put there because of what was said in court, they didn't know how to help me and the Judge did not want to hear it. I was put inside a level four, high security prison. I was surrounded by gang members, rapists, killers, and child molesters. This is where I stayed for five years where I received absolutely no help for my disabilities; I was locked in a 9'x12' cell twenty-four hours a day with this kind of inmate next to me. Again, I will leave it up to your imagination to think about what it was like because there's a lot more that I can't say in writing about it. While I was there, after all the stuff I was going through and knowing what I had been through I knew I wanted to try to make a change so this didn't happen to someone else. That is where I am today. Doing the best I can, trying to be someone who can make a difference. I realize now, that I was given a second chance at life and have been told by a lot of good people that I have met, with my beliefs in a higher power, that I was kept around for a reason and maybe this is it. We live in a country were TBI/ABI resources are severely limited. I am a survivor of TBI raising Awareness to put a voice to TBI/ABI-----Help raise awareness on TBI/ABI by making a difference in the lives of survivors and their loved ones. WE CAN ALL HELP MAKE THAT DIFFERENCE Goodwill Industries of WCT, 165 Ocean Terrace Bridgeport CT, 06605. Care of Craig Sears TBI/ABI Social Group