Eric Petersen’s Remarkable Recovery from a Motorcycle Accident

Eric Petersen of Mentor, Ohio, served our country as a Marine. He was deployed to Iraq in 2005 and served in Afghanistan in 2008. Eric came back home and was a reservist and trained as an EMT, paramedic, and firefighter. While working as a firefighter in Akron, Eric experienced a life-changing event during his off-hours: he had a near-fatal motorcycle accident that resulted in a traumatic brain injury. 

Through years of physical, occupational, and speech-language therapies, Eric learned how to walk again and so much more. “Both the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities (OOD) worked with Eric for years to help him reenter the workforce. He came such a long way,” explained Sunny Gilmore, OOD Senior Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor.

Eric joins the podcast to talk about his experience with some assistance from his dad, Tom Petersen. 

Transcripts and MP3 files are available at ood.ohio.gov/podcast.

Do you have a disability? Do you want a job? OOD can help! Visit OODWorks.com or call 800-282-4536 to get started. 

Find OOD on social media: @OhioOOD. 

Have a disability? Want to work? Visit OODWorks.com!

Transcript

Kim Jump: Eric Petersen of Mentor, Ohio served our country as a marine and was deployed to Iraq in 2005. And a couple of years later he served in Afghanistan. Eric came back home and was a reservist and trained as an EMT, paramedic, and firefighter. While working as a firefighter in Akron, Eric experienced a life-changing event during his off-hours. He had a near-fatal motorcycle accident that resulted in a traumatic brain injury.

He joins the podcast to talk about his experience with some assistance from 

his dad, Tom Petersen.

Thank you so much for your service, Eric. And welcome Tom, welcome Eric to the podcast.

How did it come to be that you decided to enter military service?

Eric Petersen: Well, I wouldn’t have gone to college for anything. That was kind of the thing. I wouldn’t go to college. Military seemed like a good idea.

Kim Jump: Mhm.  And what branch did you enter?

Eric Petersen: Marines.

Kim Jump: The Marines.  I always think of the Marines, as like, you know, the toughest of the tough. 

Eric Petersen: Yes, the Marines say it that way too.

Kim Jump: (laughs.) Yeah. Right.

Eric Petersen: The Marines, I was Infantry. 

Kim Jump: (laughs.) Infantry.

Eric Petersen: It’s like being put in a location. And you go out and you do like patrols. Find out what’s going on and try to be helpful to the community. Then you get attacked. 

Kim Jump: Yeah.  Whoo.  What countries did that take you to? Or were you mostly in the states?

Eric Petersen: No, I was in Iraq, Afghanistan. On my second deployment, we were on a ship, which no longer exists. The last time we went out, it got decommissioned, after we used it. It was kind of a piece of crap ship.

Tom Petersen: Yeah, he had two combat tours. The first were in Iraq and then later to Afghanistan and in the middle, he was on this ship which basically was in the middle east, in the area.  Yeah, they had to go to Kenya and did some training with the soldiers there.

Tom Petersen: That was a more relaxing deployment for his parents, you know? Because obviously the combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan were pretty nasty places. He saw a lot of nasty stuff, which we’ve only heard anecdotally because Eric being a typical veteran, doesn’t really talk much about his time he was there. But his friends have given us some kind of insights into what went on and it is pretty nasty stuff.  

Kim Jump:  Gosh, I hadn’t realized you were deployed twice. That makes my thank you even bigger. That’s a lot.

Tom Petersen: He came out of the Marines as a Staff Sergeant. So, he definitely was a leader. And he was really a good Marine by all accounts. And when he came back from his last deployment, the Major said, hey, is there anything you can do to keep him in the Marines? That’s kind of his call. And his real calling is he wanted to be a firefighter. The Marines was a good bridge between high school and becoming a firefighter. He achieved that goal as well. 

Kim Jump: So how many years of service was that altogether?

Eric Petersen: I did the four I originally signed up for, then either, I don’t know if I re-enlisted. I think I just did a two-year or maybe a three-year extension.  

Tom Petersen: Basically, his main service time was roughly five years. Originally, it was supposed to be four years, but he really, really wanted to go to Afghanistan. We really preferred he didn’t obviously. But to be a Marine, I think he felt he had to do that. That was 2004 and got out in 2009. Then he was a Reservist with one of the local, headquarters in support basically.

Eric Petersen: Battalion.

Tom Petersen: Or, yeah battalion. Sorry. So, that ended up being a couple more years. But his service time was really about five years. 

Eric Petersen: I was a firefighter and paramedic. So, I had to go through those schools. When I got out of the Marines, I did EMT basic course, which is about three months. Then paramedic is like nine. Then the 248-hour class to be a firefighter.

Tom Petersen: Yeah, he had a handful of part-time firefighter jobs during that time, you know, with smaller, local communities in the Lake County area. And, ultimately, he became a firefighter for the city of Akron, which started in June of 2015. 

Kim Jump: What was that like for you? Eric, it sounds like that would have been a goal for quite some time. What was it like to be hired on with Akron?

Eric Petersen: That was a good thing.  It’s the fifth largest city in the state. So, that was cool. The thing I found out from my house to drive to Akron was like 40-45 minutes.  I was like, dang, that’s a long drive.

Kim Jump: Yeah. On top of long hours.

Eric Petersen: Well, I’m there for a day. 

Tom Petersen:  It’s 24-hour shifts. It’s one day on and two days off, effectively. It’s a little more less than that. But that’s kind of what happens.

Kim Jump: Somewhere along the way, you experienced a traumatic brain injury. Did that occur during your work as a firefighter?

Eric Petersen: No. Motorcycle accident. 

Kim Jump: You rode?

Eric Petersen: Yes.

Kim Jump: And you were in accident that caused the TBI?

Eric Petersen: Yes.

Kim Jump: Oh geese. Okay, do you remember much about what happened?

Eric Petersen: No.

Tom Petersen: No, it was all TBI. There’s no recollection of the accident. He doesn’t even remember that day as far as I know.

Eric Petersen: No.

Kim Jump: Well. Nothing about it?

Tom Petersen: It was March 8, 2016. So, it was roughly a year after he joined Akron. It was March 8th. The weather was spotty, but it was a gorgeous, you know, pretty spring day. He took his motorcycle out just to go around the block, basically. He lost control of it and hit a telephone pole. The telephone pole basically won. 

Kim Jump: Gosh.

Tom Petersen: That was a tough day for all of us. It’s been tough throughout it all. But, he’s made a remarkable recovery too.  They had no sense of if he woke up or what he’d be like if he woke up.  There’s various degrees of traumatic brain injury. His was probably, if it’s a continuum on just a concussion or if it’s fatal, it was somewhere in the middle closer to fatal. It was pretty serious. He was unconscious for two weeks. They kept him sedated because he was on a ventilator and fighting the ventilator. But, he got tremendous care, and the nurses, and staff, we just really appreciated the doctors and nurses there. And, one nurse kept saying we know he is in there and she got him to give a thumbs up. Basically a little over two weeks of being basically in a coma, and that was the beginning of his road to recovery.

It’s been a long road and as I’ve said, he’s gotten a lot of support from the VA. His insurance covered him to go to a rehab facility in Stow. He spent time at the VA. He spent time at Ann Arbor, which was awesome. It was a nine-month, it was supposed to be six months. It was called the AL TBI program. He could have got to a place in Columbus, or Eerie, or Ann Arbor. Of course, Eric wasn’t part of the decision-making process. But, my wife and I looked at these places and the facilities at Ann Arbor looked really the best we thought for Eric. It really was. We took him there basically in a wheelchair. And when we brought him back home, we left the wheelchair behind for two reasons. One, he didn’t need it. And, two, we couldn’t fit it into the car. But, I mean, he made a lot of progress there. It was pretty awesome. And as for the VA for Eric, at the end of it, he went from, he was in a room inside the facility, and next door they had apartments for supported living arrangement. And, he was living on his own. I mean they supported him. They helped with his medications, and they would take him to go grocery shopping. They helped with things of that nature. But he was pretty much, somewhat independent. That happened within that nine-month time frame. Then when he came back, the VA also gave him, there was a program, they had in Richmond, Virginia that was designed to really get him into independent living, possibly driving. But, by that time, Eric had not been home for a year and a half. He didn’t really embrace the program. He was only there a few weeks and he came home and basically been living with me and my wife since then.

Kim Jump: Can I just go back, just so we know the hospital where you spent those first couple of weeks, with the team, Tom, you were saying were so excellent, which hospital was that? 

Tom Petersen: Hillcrest in Cleveland.

Kim Jump: Yeah. Okay.

Tom Petersen: Yeah, they’re a level two trauma center. They’re up there. I mean, they’re equipped to handle people like Eric. And, the doctors and nurses, and the staff there were awesome. 

Kim Jump: Yeah. 

Tom Petersen: I mean the support he got from family and friends that showed up.  Bernadette and her twin sister came down. It’s kind of funny. We’re in the waiting room of the ICU. We’re doing what they call a divine mercy chaplain. And the one doctor came in and he thought we were all crazy, I think. It was kind of funny. A lot of good support.

The Akron firefighters did a fundraiser for him in a place somewhere between Akron and Cleveland. One of Eric’s friends who was in the Army owns a bar and he did a fundraiser for him. So, there was just a lot of good stuff that came out of it. 

As bad as this has been for all of us, it’s been uplifting too. And the support and the OOD has been super supportive too. I mean he has his job at the Goodwill because of OOD. 

Kim Jump: Yeah, I definitely want to get to that. But that’s so cool to hear about how your family members, and your friends, and the professionals all rallied around you. When you look back to that time, Eric, what kind of goes through your head about it all?

Eric Petersen: I had a bunch of people all around me that were willing to help. 

Kim Jump: Yeah.

Tom Petersen: Part of the problem is that he doesn’t remember a lot of that. 

Kim Jump: Yeah.

Tom Petersen: Part of the problem, he doesn’t remember a lot of that stuff. He doesn’t remember working in Akron so much, which is kind of interesting. But he remembers he was a part-time firefighter in Painesville city, which is a little bit east of Manor. And, he remembers that more than he remembers the Akron job. He remembers the Iraq deployment, which was in 2004, or 2005, I’m sorry. He remembers that more than the Afghanistan deployment, which was a couple of years later. It’s just, you know, the memory, it’s clogged.

Kim Jump: Yeah, it’s so interesting how it’s like retrieved different ways and different order it sounds like.

Tom Petersen: Yeah. But he will hear a song and he’ll be singing the lyrics. There’s a lot that’s in there. And there’s a lot that just isn’t. So anything that happened, especially in the first year or two of the accident, I think his memory is a little bit hazy if that. 

Kim Jump: Right. Mhm.

Tom Petersen: I mean his brain was still scrambled. He sat there in a chair squirming. We’re sitting outside in a porch-like setting and I said what’s wrong Eric? And, he said, there’s a seven-inch fish under his leg. And I said, Eric, I don’t see a fish. And of course, there is nothing there. But he was like showing me this imaginary fish. And when we were sitting inside there, sometimes he tells me to be careful, there’s a little boy or dog under the table that’s going to bite us. It’s called confabulation. It’s hallucinating, I think. It may not be true hallucinations, but to go from there, and that just kind of over time, and I think therapy helped. He’s had speech therapy and obviously physical therapy, occupational therapy, which is more of a fine motor skill. Speech therapy is the whole processing. I think it’s called speech-language therapy now. But, all that stuff, over time, I think, maybe just the brain reconnecting.

He had to learn to walk again. I remember, and Eric doesn’t remember anything about this, but his physical therapist had him on a walker. But he needed someone behind him.

Tom Petersen:  The physical therapist had him on a walker, but we needed somebody walking behind him to hold the walker so he wouldn’t extend out and fall forward, and he’d take 10 steps and he’d have to sit down. And now, he’s fine. It’s just so much good that was there and I have spent more time with Eric than anybody else, probably everybody else combined, just because the nature of my job allows me to take time off in the morning and stop by and see him at Metro on my way to work, and I subsequently retired a little bit early to help facilitate his recovery. It’s just been impressive to see how far he’s come.

Kim Jump: Yeah, physically and mentally.

Eric Petersen: Absolutely.

Kim Jump: I mean Eric for you to do all the different therapies, but all that work to help kinda put things back, I mean that sounds like you’ve been a fighter in that regard.

Eric Petersen: Yeah, you fight to a point, and then whatever takes a long time, you just get fed up and you go, “I gotta go again?”

Kim Jump: It got old?

Eric Petersen: Yes.

Kim Jump: Sure your dad and others were pushing you to just keep hanging in there.

Eric Petersen: He always does.

Tom Petersen: He still has the VA support, too, the polytrauma team there he has an appointment next week with a doctor, who sees him a couple times a year. And now I mean they are helping him with his feet, he has had issues with his feet, because his gait is altered so they made him orthotics. They made him an orthotic and so they are still supporting him in that regard, which is nice. And I think they meet monthly and all the people that helped him out there, because they have vocational therapists and obviously the various other therapy disciplines and psychiatrists that he’s seen and psychologists and it’s just --and they still talk about him. Ya know, his progress, which is kinda nice.  I mean, they are taking care of the vet. And the VA, you hear a lot of bad things about the VA, and there has been some administrative glitches over the years, a handful of them, but as a whole the VA has been awesome and the care you get is top notch, it really is.

Kim Jump: It really is wonderful to hear. How did you all find OOD?

Tom Petersen: Probably through the VA’s vocational rehab team. They said that the OOD will help somebody with Eric’s disabilities and yet, Sunny Gilmore was the first person we met. And it’s kind of funny because I had worked for the Jewish Family Services Association of Cleveland and we had a lot, we had DD group homes and we had mental health homes and obviously, there were Holocaust survivor things because it’s a Jewish agency, but a lot of it was in the DD world. And I was familiar with OOD so when Eric – first contract he had for employment through OOD and with Sunny Gilmore’s help, I reached out to JFSA because I knew they provided job coaching services. And I knew the guy that actually came out to our house or our condo (we were still living downtown at the time) and talked with Eric and he worked at a Dave’s Supermarket which is a pretty good place, because their place, much like Goodwill will hire people with disabilities. And it was a good experience for Eric. It was only a couple of weeks, but it was a good experience that actually got him into, just assimilating back to the real world, where he was away from us, too. Yeah, you know he doesn’t want to spend the whole time living with his mom and dad, ya know. Our goal is still to get him living independently and the doctors, the VA, kind of think I’m out of my mind to even consider it. But, if you don’t try, it won’t happen. So we’re just, ya know. I can be patient. It’s taken years. I mean it’s been six years since the accident so he isn’t there yet, but to me, it’s still a goal.

Kim Jump: Yeah.

Tom Petersen: And the Wounded Warriors are helping with that, ya know just all the support he’s gotten, it’s still pretty impressive. He first had; I think it was through OOD I think it was called Work Matters?  But Eric wasn’t quite ready, it was a classroom setting and they sort of asked him to not come back after a while. His filter was still pretty bad, I mean-

 Kim Jump: Not ready.

Tom Petersen:  He hadn’t been appropriate, really, and again it was like a  classroom setting and it was too early for Eric. We didn’t know that until, we just didn’t know. We found out, he even at Goodwill at first, he had to be careful because he was saying inappropriate things to people dropping things off.  I mean Eric knows and will tell us that people will literally drop off garbage there, 

Eric Petersen: Yes, people drop off garbage.

Tom Petersen: But you don’t tell them that. You say thank you and you move on and then you throw it away. But Eric was a “this is trash,” and probably use a word stronger than trash.

Kim Jump: (Laughing)

Tom Petersen: Yeah, so it’s been a process.

Eric Petersen: A lot of times people will try to drop off VHS tapes (we don’t take those.) Or they try to drop off just a bag of hangers, we don’t take the hangers.

 Kim Jump: Right.

Eric Petersen: They thought we could use them. Nope, we have our own.

 Tom Petersen: It’s how you say it that’s the key

 Kim Jump: Were their steps between the first job with the market and then before you got hired on at Goodwill?

Tom Petersen: 2018 he was still for that entire year he was getting therapy two days a week at the VA. He was getting physical therapy two days a week and speech and occupational therapy and it was kinda good when we first started taking him there.  I would go with him to help him, because the VA is like any other hospital, it’s difficult to maneuver until you get familiar with it. And he would have a couple therapies, we’d eat lunch, and then he’d have the third therapy and go home. But toward the end, I was just dropping him off and he was on his own, which I thought was pretty good; because when we first started going to the VA he’d walk down the hall and there’d be people standing in the middle of the hallway and like we all did we’d just go around them. But, Eric would go right thru them, because they were blocking him. So, of all the many little things, relearning societal norms, again it was that filter that was. But, finally, he might just say something to me, and the VA helped with that. The psychologist would tell him, ya know Eric -- they established techniques for him to maybe just think of something rather than saying something. It was interesting. It was almost like retraining from childhood, like certain things you just don’t say out loud.

Kim Jump: Yeah.

Tom Petersen: 2019 we bought the house in Mentor, we didn’t move until early 2020 and once we moved he found a job at a FITWORKS, here in Mentor. That was an interesting job. I don’t think Eric particularly cared for it. And the last time he worked there, he basically passed out at work, part of it was too much sugar and he was drinking 3 or 4 monsters a day and it might have been dietary. He also left the premises to buy cigarettes, which he doesn’t smoke, so I don’t know what he was thinking there. But, it was funny because the job coach didn’t do the job, I won’t say the name of the firm, because it doesn’t matter, but they just kind of let him down, I think.

Kim Jump: At that point, he really still needed that support, it sounds like.

Tom Petersen: He did, and it wasn’t Sunny Gilmore. Sunny Gilmore was transferred or something, I don’t know. But she wasn’t his um, I forget the title

Kim Jump:  Counselor, yeah. 

Tom Petersen: Counselor. Yeah, it was some other woman’s name it escapes me. If I looked, I have the paperwork somewhere, but I believe she’s the one and she said, “I wouldn’t use that firm again because they let Eric down.” He shouldn’t of been able to walk out.

Kim Jump: Right. 

Tom Petersen: And so FITWORKS didn’t want him to come back. We understood. And then we got a hold of a guy named Steve, through the OOD

Eric Petersen: NamkoongTom Petersen: Yeah, Namkoong. And he worked with Goodwill, a lot. And Eric was working at Goodwill on the near east side of Cleveland about 10 miles from here. And he worked with Steve and Steve was his job coach. We really liked Steve he was a great guy; he has since retired.  But, I don’t think we need him anymore, but he also ultimately helped Eric get that connection with the Goodwill in Painesville Township, and provided some of the job coaching services there. You know at the end of the day, that’s been awesome. Eric has been at Goodwill for over a year.

Eric. Yes!

Kim Jump:  Good for you, Eric!

Tom Petersen: He has really been a valued employee, really they need him. But, I’ll say this Eric takes the job seriously. He’s ready to go in the morning and in Lake County we have a transit system that will take him to work and back. The hours aren’t perfect like when it closes, we have to pick him up, something we’d rather not be doing.

Kim Jump: Right.

Tom Petersen: But, it’s fine. So, he books his own rides and it’s nice because he is out of the house and he is productive. And I think he embraces the job, he might not love the job. It’s not a firefighter’s job, but that- 

Kim Jump: Right

Tom Petersen: But, I think he is ready to go, he gets there nice and early and he works hard when he’s there by all accounts, so -

Kim Jump: You bring that discipline that you’ve had in your other positions, you bring that with you it sounds like.

Eric Petersen: A little bit.

Tom Petersen: I hadn’t thought of it that way, but I think that’s true.

Kim Jump: Yeah, your history is a very disciplined kind of career.

Eric Petersen: But yeah, but then you see what people are donating.

Kim Jump: (Laughing)

Eric Petersen: It’s like, really?

Kim Jump: So, you mention, you have one daughter?

Eric Petersen: Yes.

Kim Jump:  That’s great. I bet she is really proud of all the progress that you have made.

Eric Petersen: I think so.

Tom Petersen: I believe she is. She is training to be an EMT and a firefighter.

Kim Jump: Wow. Oh, wow. I bet you’re so proud.

Tom Petersen: Yeah and she won a scholarship for going to school. It’s pretty cool, she’s gotten some awards already for what she’s done. And will she ultimately become a firefighter? We hope so. And I know she hopes so. But we also know that sometimes things change and maybe she’ll wind up being a nurse or something, who knows? But, she’s a really good kid and yeah, we’re proud of her.

 Eric Petersen: I know she wants to be a nurse, her mom’s a nurse.

Tom Petersen: I’m just saying, right now though,

Eric Petersen: She’ll train her.

Tom Petersen: … she’s on firefighting course and we’ll see what happens, ya know. One other thing I should add here is Eric also has a son.

Kim Jump: Oh.

Tom Petersen: He’s got the 18-year-old daughter and Connor just turned..

Eric Petersen: No, he’s going to turn nine.

Tom Petersen: Oh yeah, in a month he’ll be nine.  But he lives in South Carolina with his mother and his sister. His sister who is not biologically, she is not Eric’s daughter, but Eric treated her like a daughter. And she stills calls him dad and calls us gram and grandpa.

Kim Jump: Yeah.

Tom Petersen: The kids were in town for about a month, and we saw them numerous times, so it was nice.

Kim Jump: You know for your kids, continuing to make that progress and do the work really is quite the example to them of handling adversity.

Tom Petersen: He’s not the dad he wants to be, unfortunately -he really can’t be, but he tries.

Kim Jump: Yeah.

Tom Petersen: And that’s important. So, driving he did get assessed at the VA about a year and a half ago. It was right before he started working at Goodwill, and he’s going to be assessed again. We have the appointment with the polytrauma doc who will connect us with this guy that will do a more formal assessment. He did a quick assessment with him, and it was more like a test.

Kim Jump: Yeah

Tom Petersen: A literal test on the computer, where the rules of the road and things of that nature. And Eric know technically how to drive and he knows the rules of the road but is he able to process – because driving is not- we kind of take it for granted when you’ve been driving, and I’ve been driving for over 50 years, and you almost take it for granted because it’s just second nature, but when your brain can’t process things the way it used to. It might be challenging.

Kim Jump: That would be amazing for you to get back to being able to do that.

Eric Petersen: It would be really nice.

Kim Jump: I really appreciate you taking the time.

Tom Petersen: Oh, we appreciate you taking the time, too. This is cool. I think it’s a great story, too. 

Kim Jump: It is.

Tom Petersen: It’s been a remarkable recovery. He’s probably already exceeded expectations from especially the doctor. I think by in large the doctors and the professionals are a little conservative in their assessment of the potential outcomes because they don’t want to get your hopes up. I always have high hopes. I’m an optimist and knowing full well I know I’ve read some of the evaluations and it sounds like they believe I have unrealistic hopes, but I don’t. I’m very realistic, but I’m also optimistic. As I said earlier, if you don’t reach as high as you can, you won’t achieve it, ya know.

 Kim Jump: Yeah.

Tom Petersen: Eric’s recovery has probably plateaued, but it doesn’t mean it’s ended.

Kim Jump: It’s been a pleasure, a pleasure getting to know you Eric, I’m wishing you continued success. I’m hoping that the car assessment, that first piece that you go do here in the near future, goes well for you. 

Eric Peterson: I hope so too! We’ll see.

Kim Jump: Yeah, fingers crossed.