California Connected Newsroom

Mercury News video of Frank and Michelle Sandoval at Ward 7D.

The San Jose Mercury News ran part one of a five-part series today on an Iraq War veteran struggling to recover from a traumatic brain injury at Acute Care Ward 7D in Palo Alto. The subject, Frank Sandoval, was one of the patients featured in California Connected’s TV segment on the center.

The Mercury’s Mark Emmons recounts Sandoval’s story in detail, introducing the reader to his family and describing his fateful encounter with an improvised explosive device or IED. His young wife, Michelle Sandoval, also emerges as a true hero, always at Frank’s side and encouraging him daily.

“It wasn’t his physical impairments that upset her most, a tearful Michelle told Harriet Zeiner, a VA neuropsychologist,” Emmons reports. “It was that Frankie seemed not to remember who he really was. That, Zeiner believed, could be the cruelest part of a brain injury. Losing a sense of who you are.”

Supported by a team of specialists and the love of his family, Frank has slowly regained more and more pieces of his life. But as Emmons reporting shows, the road ahead is still long and hard. An in-depth multimedia page also features several videos, graphics and reporters’ commentary.

• War Stories from Ward 7-D: At the Polytrauma Unit of the VA medical center in Palo Alto, we follow four soldiers with Traumatic Brain Injury who are working to rehabilitate their bodies and their minds.
• Military Recruiting: California Connected visits Sonora and San Francisco to get a firsthand look at the challenges facing today’s Army recruiters.
• Military Marriage Counseling: Marriage counseling for returning soldiers provided en masse in auditoriums.
• Twentynine Palms: The city of Twentynine Palms hosts the largest live-fire military base in the world. While Marines from the base are in on the frontlines of the war in Iraq, the community is trying to keep its economy out of the red.