Link Between Blasts and PTSD
Video Transcript
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Jacob Fadley
served 12 years and 4 tours
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He was a combat photographer
in the army.
He spent time close
to heart-thumping blasts,
yet he came home
without a scratch
on the outside.
Did you think you had
post-traumatic stress?
JACOB FADLEY: I think-- no. I knew I had PTSD, but I never wanted to say that. Because when you say it, then you have to deal with it.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Dr. Daniel Perl has a clue as to what's going on inside the heads of veterans like Jacob Fadley. He's a neuropathologist at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, an entity of the Department of Defense. He's studying how blast exposure impacts the brain.
DANIEL PERL: This is from an individual who had been in an automobile accident.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: He's been looking at the brains of civilians who suffered head injuries and comparing them to soldiers exposed to blasts.
DANIEL PERL: Now, let me show you the same procedure, roughly the same area of the brain, same stain.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Oh, wow.
DANIEL PERL: This is somebody who had been exposed to an IED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: This is an individual who had been exposed to a massive blast. Is this also someone who had post-traumatic stress disorder?
DANIEL PERL: Yes.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Dr. Perl believes that this brown scarring is a breakthrough discovery, evidence that PTSD, a psychological disorder, may be partly the result of physical harm.
DANIEL PERL: When the explosion goes off, it forms what's called a blast wave, which is a high-pressure pulse that expands out from the blast in all directions at the speed of sound approximately. A high-pressure pulse passing through this delicate instrument called the brain.
JACOB FADLEY: I came back home for my third deployment, and I cried all the time.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Fadley left the military in 2014 after his fourth deployment. 33 and eligible for the GI bill, he thought studying film at USC would put his life back on track. But just one month into his first semester--
JACOB FADLEY: I didn't see the train signal. I didn't see that at all. Made a left turn exactly as the train was coming. I could feel blood pouring out of me. I knew I was dying.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Fadley had driven, accidentally, into the path of an oncoming commuter train. To this day, he avoids this intersection.
JACOB FADLEY: It's not comfortable. Yeah. It's OK. I'm not upset. I'm just anxious.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: It was finally enough for him to seek treatment for PTSD. That sawdust-y, brown pattern that exists across the brain, an MRI doesn't pick that up? A CAT scan doesn't pick that up?
DANIEL PERL: No.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: You can't see that in a living person?
DANIEL PERL: It's not that it isn't there, it just doesn't have the resolution to see it. We're going to need to use other means. We're going to have to develop other approaches.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: The Veterans Administration uses the diagnosis of the American Psychiatric Association for PTSD. They call it a mental disorder to be treated by drugs or therapy. They don't consider it a physical injury. The VA's Chief Mental Health Consultant is Dr. Harold Kudler.
HAROLD KUDLER: I think no matter what we find in the brain or the blood on EEGs, we're still going to have to have these conversations with people, and talk about what trauma means to people, as part of their recovery.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Fadley's college thesis, a film called "Into The Trenches" focused on his struggles. He hopes research will one day give him the comfort of knowing what's going wrong inside his head.
JACOB FADLEY: It makes you feel like you're not crazy. You can point to something to someone else and say, do you see this? This thing did it.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: I'm Soledad O'Brien in Los Angeles.
JACOB FADLEY: I think-- no. I knew I had PTSD, but I never wanted to say that. Because when you say it, then you have to deal with it.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Dr. Daniel Perl has a clue as to what's going on inside the heads of veterans like Jacob Fadley. He's a neuropathologist at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, an entity of the Department of Defense. He's studying how blast exposure impacts the brain.
DANIEL PERL: This is from an individual who had been in an automobile accident.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: He's been looking at the brains of civilians who suffered head injuries and comparing them to soldiers exposed to blasts.
DANIEL PERL: Now, let me show you the same procedure, roughly the same area of the brain, same stain.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Oh, wow.
DANIEL PERL: This is somebody who had been exposed to an IED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: This is an individual who had been exposed to a massive blast. Is this also someone who had post-traumatic stress disorder?
DANIEL PERL: Yes.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Dr. Perl believes that this brown scarring is a breakthrough discovery, evidence that PTSD, a psychological disorder, may be partly the result of physical harm.
DANIEL PERL: When the explosion goes off, it forms what's called a blast wave, which is a high-pressure pulse that expands out from the blast in all directions at the speed of sound approximately. A high-pressure pulse passing through this delicate instrument called the brain.
JACOB FADLEY: I came back home for my third deployment, and I cried all the time.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Fadley left the military in 2014 after his fourth deployment. 33 and eligible for the GI bill, he thought studying film at USC would put his life back on track. But just one month into his first semester--
JACOB FADLEY: I didn't see the train signal. I didn't see that at all. Made a left turn exactly as the train was coming. I could feel blood pouring out of me. I knew I was dying.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Fadley had driven, accidentally, into the path of an oncoming commuter train. To this day, he avoids this intersection.
JACOB FADLEY: It's not comfortable. Yeah. It's OK. I'm not upset. I'm just anxious.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: It was finally enough for him to seek treatment for PTSD. That sawdust-y, brown pattern that exists across the brain, an MRI doesn't pick that up? A CAT scan doesn't pick that up?
DANIEL PERL: No.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: You can't see that in a living person?
DANIEL PERL: It's not that it isn't there, it just doesn't have the resolution to see it. We're going to need to use other means. We're going to have to develop other approaches.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: The Veterans Administration uses the diagnosis of the American Psychiatric Association for PTSD. They call it a mental disorder to be treated by drugs or therapy. They don't consider it a physical injury. The VA's Chief Mental Health Consultant is Dr. Harold Kudler.
HAROLD KUDLER: I think no matter what we find in the brain or the blood on EEGs, we're still going to have to have these conversations with people, and talk about what trauma means to people, as part of their recovery.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Fadley's college thesis, a film called "Into The Trenches" focused on his struggles. He hopes research will one day give him the comfort of knowing what's going wrong inside his head.
JACOB FADLEY: It makes you feel like you're not crazy. You can point to something to someone else and say, do you see this? This thing did it.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: I'm Soledad O'Brien in Los Angeles.