With Veteran's Life In Peril, His Parents Take Up The Fight

With Veteran's Life In Peril, His Parents Take Up The Fight
NPR
October 12, 2013

Doctors said Erik Schei would be a "vegetable" for the rest of his life — and he was only 21. He had been shot in the head on his second tour in Iraq. But his parents choose to bring him home and give him another chance at life. Now, they say he's smiling every day and grateful to be alive.

In October 2005, 21-year-old Army Sgt. Erik Schei was shot in the head during his second tour in Iraq.

The bullet shattered the top half of his skull.

Christine and Gordon Schei got the phone call about their son's injury at around 4 a.m. Christine Schei says her husband was "white as a sheet" and shaking after answering.

A sniper had struck their son; a bullet "entered above his right ear and exited above his left," Gordon Schei says.

"They told us he'd be a vegetable his whole life — wouldn't be able to eat, wouldn't be able to speak," he says. "And prior to him going to Iraq, I had had a conversation with Erik. He had asked me if anything ever happened to him to pull the plug."

Christine Schei says she understood that promise, but she couldn't bear the idea of ending her son's life. She asked the doctor to confirm, to show her on paper that there was no brain activity.

"And he looked at me and he was really quiet. I said, 'You know what? There's no more talking about unplugging.' And at that point, we decided to take him home," she says.

And they've been his primary caregivers for the past eight years.
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