Car crash got disabled GI the help he needed

Car crash got disabled GI the help he needed

The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Dec 23, 2007 13:35:10 EST

DETROIT, Maine — For former Army Spc. Matthew Pennington, who lost one leg and part of the other in combat in Iraq nearly 20 months ago, a near-fatal drunken driving accident in September marked the low point in his struggle to get his life back on track.

Traveling at what police later told him was about 55 mph, Pennington drove into the wall of the Bank of America building on Exchange Street in Bangor.

“It was my statement: ‘I am done,”’ said the 24-year-old paratrooper from Detroit. He had turned to alcohol, he said, out of frustration in dealing with his physical injuries and the demons that followed him home from the war.

Pennington had been fitted with a prosthetic leg that he hoped to someday use to run a marathon. But when the leg broke in June and Pennington was unable to get it fixed, he lost a measure of his independence.

A months-long delay in getting his leg fixed was the first of what he said was a series of barriers that prevented him from getting the help he needed through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

After the crash in Bangor, Pennington started receiving treatment for the post-traumatic stress disorder he had been diagnosed with more than a year before. Other help came after he and his wife began speaking publicly about their problems. On Thursday he was fitted with new parts for his prosthetic leg, which turned out to be a vast improvement.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/12/ap_vetsstruggle_071223/