Hugo Gonzalez - Army Veteran injured in an IED Attack

Welcome to the Veteran's PATH podcast. Veterans PATH is a nonprofit introducing veterans to the life changing and life saving practices of meditation and mindfulness. I'm your host, Jon Macaskill - a Navy SEAL Commander turned mindfulness teacher. Check out https://www.veteranspath.org or at any of the social media links below to find out more! Today, my guest is Army Veteran Hugo Gonzalez (picture credit Andrea Bruce Woodall - Washington Post). Hugo was severely injured in combat in Baqubah, Iraq on June 21, 2004. He was on patrol in a Hummer bucket truck when his unit was ambushed. The vehicle took a direct hit from an improvised explosive device (IED) and a furious gun battle broke out with insurgents. The blast wave caused Hugo to suffer a traumatic brain injury, after fragments ripped into his head. He was evacuated to the base camp where he was placed in a medically-induced coma, and underwent a craniotomy to remove a piece of bone from his cranium to relieve the pressure of the swelling of his brain. He suffered internal bleeding, a sinus bone fracture, a crushed optic nerve in his right eye and a hole in the left retina. He is legally blind. In 2005, he underwent a cranioplasty to repair his skull defect. The procedure went well, but he suffered multiple seizures requiring long term therapy with anti-epileptic medications. I pulled that bio off the Buildinghomesforheroes.org website because it was perfect and covered a lot of what I want to speak to you about so I just quickly wanted to give them a shoutout and give them credit for the bio too. Building Homes for Heroes gifted Hugo, his wife, and their three children a home in Florida in October of 2015. Stay tuned as We’re going to find out a lot more about Hugo here in today’s episode of the Veteran’s PATH podcast. Learn more about Building Homes for Heroes here: https://www.buildinghomesforheroes.org Connect with Hugo on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100020314457684 ******** Follow Veteran’s PATH here: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPvJnrurdnXxdlaE7v3uoMA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/veteranspath/ Facebook: https://facebook.com/veteranspath LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/veteran's-path Twitter: https://twitter.com/veteranspath