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Paralyzed Olive Branch vet throws out first pitch at Cubs game

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Tyler Densford

Tyler Densford was only a mild baseball fan.

But after having the chance to throw out the first pitch this week at a Chicago Cubs game against the Milwaukee Brewers in Wrigley Field, and listening to the roar of the crowd cheer for him, the paralyzed veteran is an even bigger fan now.

Densford, a 2012 graduate of Lewisburg High School who was paralyzed from the chest down in a freak 2016 helicopter training accident, was able to walk upright to the pitchers mound using an Indego robotic exoskeleton which was donated to him by a family member of the Cubs’s owners.

“It was super awesome,” Densford said. “I came out on a golf cart from right field. They brought me to the dugout. I stood up off the golf cart and walked from there. I told my parents it was the best night of my life.”

Before finishing high school, Densford had earned his private pilot’s license and went on to pursue a career in aviation as a military pilot. Following Basic Military Training, Densford served with the 155th Air Guard Unit in Memphis as an aircraft flight equipment technician.

He was on a training mission in the summer of 2016 when he was accidentally dropped from a Blackhawk helicopter. Densford fell 40 feet and was left paralyzed from the chest down with a T8 spinal cord injury.

“It was a hoist exercise,” Densford said. “The medic fell out and I was attached to him. Then a seat came detached from the carabiner. It was just a series of unfortunate events.”

Densford said the Indego is fairly new technology. The device is a powered exoskeleton that fits to the lower limbs. It enables those like him with spinal cord injuries to stand and walk, and allows them to experience greater mobility and a new level of functional independence.

Densford was part of a four-month program testing a bionic walking system through the St. Louis Veteran’s Administration in 2020, but the study was cut short and he wasn’t able to continue due to COVID.

One of the therapists who worked with him was at a fundraiser showcasing the device and met Sylvie Legere Ricketts and her husband, Todd. The Ricketts are co-owners of the Chicago Cubs, and told her that they wanted to purchase a device and donate it to a veteran. An Indego exoskeleton costs about $100,000.

Densford was one of a handful of veterans who qualified for the device, and after meeting with Sylvie Ricketts, was selected to receive a device through the national nonprofit SoldierStrong. The Ricketts invited him to throw out the first pitch at Wrigley Field.

“I am so appreciative of Sylvie and Todd Ricketts,” Densford said. “I can’t say enough about how generous they are and what a great host they were to my family and me in Chicago. They are some of the greatest people I have ever met.”

Densford said the Indego has totally changed his quality of life. The exoskeleton has allowed him to get out of his wheelchair and walk independently.

“It’s pretty neat to see,” Densford said. “It doesn’t completely take away my wheel chair. At this point the battery life isn’t extremely long, only a few hours. And you are limited on the terrain you can go. But going to the gym and going around the walking track at the YMCA, it is really beneficial. And just to know that when I get married some day, that I will be able to stand, it is pretty emotional.”

And for the record, Densford said he is proud of the fact that he did not bounce the pitch to home plate.

“I had been practicing,” Densford said. “I wouldn’t have lived it down if I bounced it.”

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Dean Kamen Announce Launch of Operation Mobility Tour

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Today, SoldierStrong, a national nonprofit dedicated to helping military veterans take their next steps forward in life after service through the donation of revolutionary medical technologies, and Dean Kamen, founder and president of DEKA Research and Development Corp., announced the launch of Operation Mobility, a 2.5-month, cross-country bus tour to donate 25 iBOT® PMDs (Personal Mobility Devices) to wounded veterans and Veterans Affairs medical facilities.

SoldierStrong first announced its commitment to fully fund and donate 10 iBOT® PMDs to wounded veterans at the VHA Innovation Experience (iEX) conference last October. Kamen also made a commitment to donate 50 units to veterans and VA medical facilities throughout the tour and after its conclusion. The donations stem from an agreement between SoldierStrong and DEKA Research and collaboration with the Manchester, N.H.-based company Mobius Mobility, which manufactures and distributes the iBOT® PMD, with the goal of creating positive and lasting impacts on the physical and mental health of those who have served our country.

“Americans are fortunate to have the world’s most efficient and effective military. In return for those expectations of excellence, it’s important that we are providing access to the most efficient and effective medical technologies for those who return home with life-changing, often debilitating, injuries,” said Chris Meek, co-founder and chairman of SoldierStrong. “At the forefront of those technologies is the powered iBOT® PMD, which many of our nation’s heroes have the potential to benefit from if they have access to the device. Through SoldierStrong’s partnership with Dean Kamen, our organization is humbled and honored to work with Mobius Mobility to deliver expanded access to this transformative technology.”

The iBOT® PMD, the brainchild of Kamen in partnership with his company, DEKA, and Johnson & Johnson’s Independent Technology division, is a one-of-a-kind powered mobility device that climbs stairs, allows users to rise from sitting level to six feet tall, maintains superior balance compared to other products on the market and can travel through sand and standing water.

Donations of the iBOT® PMDs are the latest effort by SoldierStrong to provide revolutionary medical technologies to help injured veterans lead full lives. SoldierStrong has donated $4.2 million in state-of-the-art medical devices to individual veterans and VA medical centers. These devices include hyper-advanced prosthetics, virtual reality hardware and software, known as BraveMind, to aid in the treatment of post-traumatic stress (PTS) and the organization’s signature device, the SoldierSuit exoskeleton, used in the rehabilitation of paralyzed individuals who experience mobility setbacks from strokes, spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries (TBI) to help them regain the ability to stand and walk again. To date, SoldierStrong has donated 24 SoldierSuits and 14 BraveMind systems.

The Operation Mobility bus tour will start in East Orange, N.J. on May 27 at the East Orange VA Medical Center and will conclude in Syracuse, N.Y. at the Syracuse VA Medical Center on Aug. 4, 2021. Operation Mobility will consist of multi-day trips with intermittent breaks to re-stock and re-position its tour bus between longer legs of the journey.

Donations of these $30,000-a-piece, high-tech mobility devices will take place at 25 VA medical centers from coast-to-coast during the tour. Those events will consist of demonstrations and guest speakers, including Kamen, Meek, existing iBOT users, VA physicians and leaders, and elected officials.

Donations of the iBOT® PMD mobility devices are scheduled to take place at the following VA facilities: East Orange VA Medical Center in East Orange, N.J.; Jamaica Plain VA Medical Center in Boston, Mass.; James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y.; Hampton VA Medical Center in Hampton, Va.; Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center in Augusta, Ga.; James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital in Tampa, Fla.; V.A. Medical Center, Miami in Miami, Fla.; Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston, Texas.; Audie L. Murphy VA Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas; VA North Texas Health Care System in Dallas, Texas.; Memphis VA Medical Center in Memphis, Tenn.; St. Louis VA Medical Center in St. Louis, Mo.; Rocky Mountain Regional VAMC in Denver, Colo.; Raymond G. Murphy VAMC in Albuquerque, N.M.; San Diego VA Medical Center in San Diego, Calif.; VA Long Beach Healthcare System in Long Beach, Calif.; VA Palo Alto Healthcare System in Palo Alto, Calif.; VA Puget Sound Healthcare System in Seattle, Wash.; Minneapolis VA Healthcare System in Minneapolis, Minn.; Clement J. Zablocki VAMC in Milwaukee, Wis.; Edward Hines, Jr. VA Medical Center in Hines, Ill.; Louis Stokes Cleveland VAMC in Cleveland, Ohio; Syracuse VA Medical Center in Syracuse, N.Y., and VA Caribbean Healthcare System in San Juan, P.R.

Retired Army Major General Joins SoldierStrong Advisory Board

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Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Gregg F. Martin has joined the advisory board of SoldierStrong, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of the nation’s military veterans by providing them with revolutionary medical technologies to help them take their next steps forward in their lives after service.

“Gregg Martin has demonstrated exemplary leadership within the United States military and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to his new role on the SoldierStrong advisory board,” said Chris Meek, the organization’s co-founder, and chairman. “I believe his presence on the board will play a key role in helping our organization bring much-needed, life-changing technology into the lives of veterans. His leadership skills, extensive military background and powerful personal story will undoubtedly be an asset to our mission.”

Martin is a combat veteran, bipolar survivor, Airborne-Ranger-Engineer qualified soldier and Army strategist, who served on active duty for 36 years. He holds a Ph.D. and two master’s degrees from MIT, master’s degrees in national security strategy from both the Army and Naval war colleges and a bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. During the first year of the Iraq War, he commanded the 130th Engineer Brigade, which was the largest engineering force in the theater.

In addition to serving multiple overseas tours, Martin has commanded the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Northwest Division as a general officer, served as Commandant of the U.S. Army Engineer School, commanded Fort Leonard Wood, served as Deputy Commanding General of Third Army/US Army Central, Commandant of the Army War College, President of National Defense University and Special Assistant to the Chief of Engineers. He has been awarded the Distinguished Service Medal twice, as well as the Bronze Star Medal and the Combat Action Badge.

Married with three sons, Martin’s family is committed to the tradition of service. Two of his sons, and his daughter-in-law, are Army combat veterans. Martin and his wife, Maggie, live in Cocoa Beach, Florida, where he writes, speaks and continually shares his story of battling bipolar disorder in an effort to help save lives and stop the stigma. He praises his wife as “a heroine for persevering through our Army career, and surviving and overcoming our bipolar ordeal, which was the toughest fight of our lives.”

“As a veteran who has experienced mental health challenges and who has received support from the Veterans Administration, I feel that I am in an advantageous position to offer my experiences and expertise as a board member in a way that will help positively shape SoldierStrong’s efforts to provide innovative medical technology – including virtual reality systems to aid in the treatment of post-traumatic stress – to VA hospitals and other medical facilities,” Martin said. “I am proud to be part of an organization of SoldierStrong’s caliber. The organization is truly changing the lives of veterans each and every day and I look forward to contributing in a meaningful way that will have a positive impact on the physical and mental health of our nation’s heroes for years to come.”

Bozeman VA Clinic to Provide BraveMind VR Treatment

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The Bozeman VA Clinic is the country’s latest Department of Veterans Affairs facility to partner with national nonprofit SoldierStrong to provide a groundbreaking virtual reality system known as BraveMind to aid in treating veterans experiencing post-traumatic stress.

SoldierStrong, a Stamford, Conn. organization, is dedicated to helping veterans take their next steps forward by connecting them with revolutionary medical technologies donated to VA medical centers and other facilities, has donated the BraveMind system to the Bozeman VA Clinic in an effort to combat the national daily average of 20 veteran suicides.

Since SoldierStrong’s inception following the tragic events of 9/11, the organization has donated more than $4.2 million of medical devices to help injured veterans. This donation is the 15th BraveMind system donated to a VA hospital since late 2019.

Co-founder and chairman Chris Meek said SoldierStrong’s goal to make medical devices, including the BraveMind system, available in as many states as possible was a significant factor in the donation. This is the first BraveMind virtual reality system in the state, making its treatment accessible to Montana’s veterans for the first time.

“We know that veterans experiencing PTS often find it both difficult and especially painful to summon specific memories from their time in service. BraveMind is designed to make the process of recalling those memories significantly easier for them,” Meek said. “The BraveMind system delivers prolonged exposure therapy, which is the practice of recalling a traumatic memory while working through that memory with a trained clinician. It’s a clinically effective, evidence-based method for treating PTS.”

He continued, “With virtual reality’s rising popularity in non-medical settings, such as video games, entertainment and even the workplace, there’s convincing evidence that younger veterans will seek PTS treatment using VR techniques who otherwise may not be inclined to participate in traditional therapy practices.”

The virtual reality technology behind BraveMind was developed by Dr. Albert “Skip” Rizzo and his team at the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies.

The technology creates 14 “worlds” of combat scenarios, from a desert roadway to a crowded Iraqi marketplace or a slum in an Afghan city. Therapists select a world based on a Veteran’s traumatic experience and customize it in the virtual reality headset, thus placing Veterans back within the midst of that memory at a pace they can handle.

“Utilizing the virtual reality technology in BraveMind gets Veterans to talk about things they’ve never talked to anyone about before,” Rizzo said. “Those memories don’t have the same emotional power that they did before because repeatedly experiencing those troubling memories in a safe environment reduces the brain’s response to them. Patients start to feel empowered, to feel that they got it out and that they can talk about it.”

The program’s efficacy stems from clinicians’ ability to customize and control the content presented in the headset so precisely from sights, sounds, smells, vibrations ‒ even the weight and tactile sensation of holding a weapon ‒ that can create a patient experience mirroring the traumatic memory.

“I’m very pleased that the Bozeman VA Clinic is committed to the VA’s tradition of excellence by providing more of our nation’s heroes access to BraveMind’s innovative technology for the very first time,” Meek said. “Not only will BraveMind help to reach more of the VA’s younger patients, but it will provide expanded access and greater choice in PTS treatment to all of Montana’s Veterans.”

SoldierStrong Donates Rehabilitation Exoskeleton to New Orleans VA

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VA New Orleans Receives Spinal Cord Rehabilitation Exoskeleton From National Nonprofit SoldierStrongSince SoldierStrong’s inception following the tragic events of 9/11, the Stamford, Conn.-based group has donated more than $3 million of medical devices to help injured Veterans. Today’s donation is the organization’s 24th exoskeleton donation, including the 20th one to the VA system. Currently, 35,000 Veterans have access to exoskeleton rehabilitation devices.

“VA has an established tradition of using the most advanced technologies to provide cutting-edge rehabilitation care to Veterans,” said Medical Center Director Fernando Rivera. “SoldierStrong’s donation of this cutting-edge device will help us continue to maximize the independence and improve the quality of life of the Veterans that we treat.”

SoldierStrong co-founder and chairman Chris Meek said the organization’s goal to make exoskeleton suits available to every Veteran in need throughout as many states as possible was a significant factor in the local donation. This is the second exoskeleton donated by SoldierStrong in the state, allowing for use of the device to become more accessible for a wider array of Louisiana’s Veterans.

“Many Veterans who sustain spinal injuries are young men and women, which means individuals often must navigate through decades of health-related challenges when these devastating injuries occur,” Meek said. “Early rehabilitation therapy with an exoskeleton has shown to have lasting positive effects on both the physical and often overlooked mental health recovery for patients who use them. That is why we feel it is so important that exoskeleton devices are made accessible to as many Veterans as possible — young and older — at the onset of their journey of recovery, in order to positively shape and impact mobility in the decades ahead. We are honored to work with the New Orleans VA Medical Center in making our goal a reality.”

 

Veterans Nonprofit Announces SoldierScholar Recipients

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Delivering on its commitment to assist soldiers taking a significant academic step into their future by filling in voids left by the Post-9/11 GI Bill, the national nonprofit SoldierStrong announced the 2020 recipients of its scholarship initiative, SoldierScholar, today.

“SoldierStrong realized early on that higher education provides a crucial set of opportunities for veterans as they return home from service and begin to transition, and ultimately adjust, to civilian life,” said SoldierStrong co-founder and chairman Chris Meek. “Our organization and supporters recognize the value of the unique interaction that occurs between higher education institutions and veterans. Not only do veterans benefit greatly from higher education, but they serve as major assets to the schools they attend by bringing with them unparalleled experiences and leadership characteristics from their time in service.”

Meek continued, “Though the GI Bill has benefitted almost one million veterans in the past year, it has not historically relieved all of the costs associated with obtaining a degree. Textbooks, classroom fees, transportation, technology, tutoring and a number of other additional expenses that come with obtaining a degree are often not considered upfront when developing a general financial plan. SoldierScholar was created to fill in those gaps left by the bill and alleviate the additional costs associated with receiving a degree. It is an honor to support and assist soldiers in their academic endeavors.”

SoldierScholar scholarships are available to veterans who fought in the recent War on Terror. SoldierStrong, which primarily provides revolutionary medical technologies to Veterans Affairs medical centers across the country to help injured veterans lead full lives, launched SoldierScholar in 2012 and has since awarded more than $500,000. This year’s recipients include:

Lucas Netti, Public Administration, Syracuse University
Lucas Netti served in the U.S. Army with the 82nd Airborne Division as an infantryman and sniper team leader. This past August, Netti graduated from Syracuse University with a bachelor of arts in political science and is expected to graduate from the university with a master’s degree in public administration and a certificate of advanced studies in security studies in August 2021. Upon graduation Netti plans on pursuing a career in government in the national security sector. “Getting the SoldierScholarship means a lot to me because it gives me an opportunity to represent Syracuse University and its veteran community. It is a good way of showing my academic achievements as a veteran and is a testament to the outstanding education that the professors here at Syracuse have provided me,” Netti said.

Kala Hagen, Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Kala Hagen served in the U.S. Navy for nine years as a cryptologic language analyst specializing in Arabic and Somali. While on active duty, Hagen earned a bachelor of arts in anthropology at the University of Florida and was selected for several prestigious language immersion programs, including Middlebury College’s summer language program in California. While receiving her master of science in foreign service at Georgetown University, Hagen will concentrate on international development in the Middle East and Africa and is especially interested in reducing factors that contribute to extremism and terrorism. Upon graduation, she aspires to serve with the State Department or U.S. Agency for International Development. “I feel incredibly honored and humbled to have been selected for a SoldierScholar scholarship,” Hagen said. “I really admire the work that SoldierStrong does to help veterans, so for them to choose to invest so significantly in my education means a great deal to me.”

Jessica Evans, Civil Engineer Technology, Old Dominion University
Jessica Evans served in the U.S. Navy as a sonar technician while stationed in Hawaii and various other places around the world. In part due to financial considerations, Evans did not go to college directly after high school, and instead was inspired to join the military branch in which both of her grandfathers served. Evans sees her service as a way to honor their legacy. After finishing her bachelor’s degree in engineering, Evans plans to pursue her master’s degree. “Growing up I never dreamed about going to college let alone going as far as pursuing my master’s degree. So to have this opportunity to reach for my dreams is really special,” Evans said.

To learn more about the SoldierScholar initiative or to donate, please visit https://www.soldierstrong.org/scholarship.