Lance Cpl. Ryan Autery - Age 20 (19 at the time of injury)
Unit - 3/24 India Co.

Ryan was in Iraq from March until August 2004, just 5 months.   His unit was moving into Kuwait to come home about two weeks after his accident.

On August 19th, 2004, Ryan's Humvee ran over an IED in Al Anbar province, causing traumatic injury to his left arm. Unfortunately, it had to be amputated just below the elbow, at the BASH. Ryan was stabilized and transferred to Baghdad. He was there for one day and then flown to Landstuhl, where he was for five long days, while Rick and I, along with the rest of the family, waited on pins and needles for word of where they were sending us to meet him. We finally left on the 25th to meet him at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.

We remained at the Bethesda Naval Hospital a total of three weeks while Ryan had numerous surgeries to clean his wounds, and the last one there to do a muscle graft and close all of the wounds. That one surgery lasted 10 hours, and I'm not sure who it was harder on, Ryan or Rick and I. Both of us slept in the recovery room that night, I could just get to him to put my hand on his leg so he would know I was there. One week later Ryan was moved to Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) to begin therapy and eventually to be fit with his prosthetics.

The prosthetics have made him a special arm to test so that they know how to make a more permanent one for him. He's had it for three weeks now and is making great progress with it. We are actually seeing that little light at the end of the tunnel get just a wee bit bigger.

We had some bad news this morning; we met with the TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) people this morning and Ryan definitely has brain injury, we will not know the extent of it until after he goes through some extensive testing. This will involve three days of tests, fortunately they break it up into different segments, but two of the tests are four hours long.

Ryan began his therapy and progressed to the point that we were able to come home in time to meet his unit when they came back to Nashville on October 10th, which was a wonderful day. We spent two weeks home and headed back to D.C. 

This story was told by Ryan's mother

The Space Between Battlefield and Home
Wounded Veterans Ready Themselves For Altered Lives
August 1, 2005
By Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writer

Click here to read more, published in the Washington Post.