bobdina
08-28-2009, 04:23 PM
EOD who overcame devastating blast retires
By Michelle Tan - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Aug 28, 2009 12:41:49 EDT
Tech. Sgt. Christopher “Matthew” Slaydon insists he’s nobody special. But the 38-year-old explosive ordnance disposal team leader is so extraordinary that Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz made it a point to attend his retirement ceremony Thursday at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz.
“I’ve been given a lot of credit for being an American hero and a patriot and I’ve done this incredibly dangerous job,” Slaydon said. “The truth of the matter is I haven’t done anything any of my EOD brothers and sisters in all four services haven’t done. I’m just another EOD guy doing his job.”
Almost two years ago, while on duty in Iraq, Slaydon was seriously wounded when an improvised explosive device exploded just two feet from his face. His incredible recovery and comeback were celebrated Thursday as he culminated a 16-year career in uniform.
On Oct. 24, 2007, Slaydon and his counter-IED team were called by an Army unit that had found a suspected IED while on patrol about 20 miles south of Kirkuk, Iraq.
Slaydon and his team responded, arriving at a T-intersection near a hostile village where they had encountered IEDs before.
After about an hour, unable to find any explosives, Slaydon decided to wrap up the mission.
“As my final task as a team leader, I do what’s known as the long walk,” he said. “I got out of the truck and I was sweeping the area on foot … [when] I saw something that looked odd.”
Slaydon yelled at an Office of Special Investigations agent who had also exited the team’s Joint EOD Rapid Response Vehicle to take cover.
He then knelt down and poked the dirt with his mine probe.
About 15 pounds of high explosives detonated just two feet from Slaydon’s face.
“The fact that it didn’t blow me to pieces is amazing,” he said.
The blast mangled Slaydon’s left arm, destroyed his left eye, shattered his face and threw him about 20 feet.
Slaydon’s team members and an Army medic rushed to his side. Within 12 minutes, a medevac helicopter arrived at the scene.
“I flatlined on the chopper,” Slaydon said. “I collapsed my left lung and my chest filled up with blood.”
At Kirkuk Air Base, doctors stabilized Slaydon before he was flown to Balad for surgery. There, doctors spent almost 11 hours operating on him, removing his left arm and left eye and stabilizing his broken jaw.
Slaydon’s wife, Annette, first learned of her husband’s wounds while he was in surgery at Balad. Members of his chain of command called before meeting with her in person. They put her on the phone with a doctor at Balad.
“That really helped bridge that gap between me and him,” Annette Slaydon said.
After a two-day stay at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, Christopher Slaydon arrived at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where his wife waited anxiously to see him for the first time since the blast.
“I looked at him and he was so unrecognizable,” Annette Slaydon said. “His head had taken so much trauma. It was so swollen, the lacerations were so open, I could see into his sinuses and almost all the way through his face.”
Annette Slaydon said she searched desperately for signs of the man she knew.
“It was kind of hard for a second but I kept looking, [saying to myself,] ‘You’ll find something you’ll recognize,” she said. “Then I saw the top of his head and I could see that he was still in there.”
On Oct. 31, 2007, the couple was taken to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas.
The whole time, Christopher Slaydon moved in and out of consciousness, barely registering what was happening around him.
“The first thing I remember was Annette asking me if I wanted to know what my wounds were,” he said. “I remember one of my first thoughts was I was wondering what Annette was doing in Iraq, because I didn’t understand I wasn’t there anymore.”
It would be weeks before the left-handed noncommissioned officer realized that he had lost his dominant arm. Doctors also were unable to save his right eye, leaving Christopher Slaydon blind.
“I think I slept as much as possible because it allowed me to avoid the distress,” he said.
Annette Slaydon also dreaded something else.
“I didn’t know how to tell him his career was over,” she said.
But after those initial days of shock, Christopher Slaydon’s progress and recovery amazed his doctors. He was released as an inpatient at Brooke in early December, at least a month sooner than doctors had predicted, and began occupational and physical therapy to prepare for a prosthetic.
He also began rehab to learn how to live as a blind man. Christopher Slaydon credits his wife for his quick recovery.
“She would bathe me, dress me, feed me, change my dressing,” he said. “She was doing everything but pushing drugs. I got out of the hospital a month early because of Annette’s care.”
Throughout their ordeal, the couple’s marriage grew stronger. They renewed their vows on April 13, 2008, at the chapel on Randolph Air Force Base in Texas.
“After going through everything we went through, it meant so much to us to still be around to be able to do it again,” Christopher Slaydon said.
The Slaydons left Brooke and returned to Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., in January 2009.
Christopher Slaydon still undergoes some blind rehab and he’s still working on post-traumatic stress and the traumatic brain injury he suffered from the blast.
His last day in uniform was to be Aug. 28, and Christopher Slaydon confessed that that day would be bittersweet.
“I thought about staying in, I could be an instructor, but I think I’d be miserable,” he said. “I’d be surrounded by guys doing the job and deploying. I would just feel like the broken wheel.”
“Honestly, it doesn’t feel any different,” he added. “I’ve lived this lifestyle for so long it’s going to take a while for this to sink in, that I’m not in the military anymore.”
He did, however, break down a little at his retirement ceremony. “I couldn’t help but shed a few tears at the end,” Slaydon admitted.
In January, Christopher Slaydon will go back to school, at Wayland Baptist University on base, and he plans to eventually earn a doctorate in clinical psychology so he can be a therapist and work with veterans.
“It’s time to move on … instead of trying to hang on to what could have been,” he said. “I’ve gotten to see the most amazing achievements a person can reach for, self sacrifice and bravery, and I’ve seen the absolute worst humanity has to offer. Even though I was wounded, I still consider myself very fortunate that I was entrusted with such an important job and sacred task of protecting our service members.”
Annette Slaydon also sought a career change. A paralegal for years, she began training in July to become the recovery care coordinator at Luke, working with wounded airmen and their families.
“I wanted to give back to people what had been given to us,” she said. “Also, we lived and breathed this experience for the last couple years. I think people will know that I truly understand what they’re going through.”
Despite the pain of the last two years, the Slaydons insist they are blessed.
“You never want something like this to happen to someone you love the most, but when it does you realize … we can either sit in a dark corner the rest of our lives or pick ourselves up and keep going,” Annette Slaydon said. “We’re both just really determined to have a good life together, and Matthew’s still going to be able to contribute to the fight. That’s a big struggle for him, feeling like he’s not contributing.”
But her husband has done a lot of public speaking across the country at Air Force bases, she said.
“He’s still touching so many people’s lives on a daily basis,” she said. “We’re just having to go a different direction. We had this plan in place, it’s not going to happen anymore, but it’s still going to be fantastic.”
http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2009/08/airforce_slaydon_082809w/
By Michelle Tan - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Aug 28, 2009 12:41:49 EDT
Tech. Sgt. Christopher “Matthew” Slaydon insists he’s nobody special. But the 38-year-old explosive ordnance disposal team leader is so extraordinary that Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz made it a point to attend his retirement ceremony Thursday at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz.
“I’ve been given a lot of credit for being an American hero and a patriot and I’ve done this incredibly dangerous job,” Slaydon said. “The truth of the matter is I haven’t done anything any of my EOD brothers and sisters in all four services haven’t done. I’m just another EOD guy doing his job.”
Almost two years ago, while on duty in Iraq, Slaydon was seriously wounded when an improvised explosive device exploded just two feet from his face. His incredible recovery and comeback were celebrated Thursday as he culminated a 16-year career in uniform.
On Oct. 24, 2007, Slaydon and his counter-IED team were called by an Army unit that had found a suspected IED while on patrol about 20 miles south of Kirkuk, Iraq.
Slaydon and his team responded, arriving at a T-intersection near a hostile village where they had encountered IEDs before.
After about an hour, unable to find any explosives, Slaydon decided to wrap up the mission.
“As my final task as a team leader, I do what’s known as the long walk,” he said. “I got out of the truck and I was sweeping the area on foot … [when] I saw something that looked odd.”
Slaydon yelled at an Office of Special Investigations agent who had also exited the team’s Joint EOD Rapid Response Vehicle to take cover.
He then knelt down and poked the dirt with his mine probe.
About 15 pounds of high explosives detonated just two feet from Slaydon’s face.
“The fact that it didn’t blow me to pieces is amazing,” he said.
The blast mangled Slaydon’s left arm, destroyed his left eye, shattered his face and threw him about 20 feet.
Slaydon’s team members and an Army medic rushed to his side. Within 12 minutes, a medevac helicopter arrived at the scene.
“I flatlined on the chopper,” Slaydon said. “I collapsed my left lung and my chest filled up with blood.”
At Kirkuk Air Base, doctors stabilized Slaydon before he was flown to Balad for surgery. There, doctors spent almost 11 hours operating on him, removing his left arm and left eye and stabilizing his broken jaw.
Slaydon’s wife, Annette, first learned of her husband’s wounds while he was in surgery at Balad. Members of his chain of command called before meeting with her in person. They put her on the phone with a doctor at Balad.
“That really helped bridge that gap between me and him,” Annette Slaydon said.
After a two-day stay at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, Christopher Slaydon arrived at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where his wife waited anxiously to see him for the first time since the blast.
“I looked at him and he was so unrecognizable,” Annette Slaydon said. “His head had taken so much trauma. It was so swollen, the lacerations were so open, I could see into his sinuses and almost all the way through his face.”
Annette Slaydon said she searched desperately for signs of the man she knew.
“It was kind of hard for a second but I kept looking, [saying to myself,] ‘You’ll find something you’ll recognize,” she said. “Then I saw the top of his head and I could see that he was still in there.”
On Oct. 31, 2007, the couple was taken to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas.
The whole time, Christopher Slaydon moved in and out of consciousness, barely registering what was happening around him.
“The first thing I remember was Annette asking me if I wanted to know what my wounds were,” he said. “I remember one of my first thoughts was I was wondering what Annette was doing in Iraq, because I didn’t understand I wasn’t there anymore.”
It would be weeks before the left-handed noncommissioned officer realized that he had lost his dominant arm. Doctors also were unable to save his right eye, leaving Christopher Slaydon blind.
“I think I slept as much as possible because it allowed me to avoid the distress,” he said.
Annette Slaydon also dreaded something else.
“I didn’t know how to tell him his career was over,” she said.
But after those initial days of shock, Christopher Slaydon’s progress and recovery amazed his doctors. He was released as an inpatient at Brooke in early December, at least a month sooner than doctors had predicted, and began occupational and physical therapy to prepare for a prosthetic.
He also began rehab to learn how to live as a blind man. Christopher Slaydon credits his wife for his quick recovery.
“She would bathe me, dress me, feed me, change my dressing,” he said. “She was doing everything but pushing drugs. I got out of the hospital a month early because of Annette’s care.”
Throughout their ordeal, the couple’s marriage grew stronger. They renewed their vows on April 13, 2008, at the chapel on Randolph Air Force Base in Texas.
“After going through everything we went through, it meant so much to us to still be around to be able to do it again,” Christopher Slaydon said.
The Slaydons left Brooke and returned to Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., in January 2009.
Christopher Slaydon still undergoes some blind rehab and he’s still working on post-traumatic stress and the traumatic brain injury he suffered from the blast.
His last day in uniform was to be Aug. 28, and Christopher Slaydon confessed that that day would be bittersweet.
“I thought about staying in, I could be an instructor, but I think I’d be miserable,” he said. “I’d be surrounded by guys doing the job and deploying. I would just feel like the broken wheel.”
“Honestly, it doesn’t feel any different,” he added. “I’ve lived this lifestyle for so long it’s going to take a while for this to sink in, that I’m not in the military anymore.”
He did, however, break down a little at his retirement ceremony. “I couldn’t help but shed a few tears at the end,” Slaydon admitted.
In January, Christopher Slaydon will go back to school, at Wayland Baptist University on base, and he plans to eventually earn a doctorate in clinical psychology so he can be a therapist and work with veterans.
“It’s time to move on … instead of trying to hang on to what could have been,” he said. “I’ve gotten to see the most amazing achievements a person can reach for, self sacrifice and bravery, and I’ve seen the absolute worst humanity has to offer. Even though I was wounded, I still consider myself very fortunate that I was entrusted with such an important job and sacred task of protecting our service members.”
Annette Slaydon also sought a career change. A paralegal for years, she began training in July to become the recovery care coordinator at Luke, working with wounded airmen and their families.
“I wanted to give back to people what had been given to us,” she said. “Also, we lived and breathed this experience for the last couple years. I think people will know that I truly understand what they’re going through.”
Despite the pain of the last two years, the Slaydons insist they are blessed.
“You never want something like this to happen to someone you love the most, but when it does you realize … we can either sit in a dark corner the rest of our lives or pick ourselves up and keep going,” Annette Slaydon said. “We’re both just really determined to have a good life together, and Matthew’s still going to be able to contribute to the fight. That’s a big struggle for him, feeling like he’s not contributing.”
But her husband has done a lot of public speaking across the country at Air Force bases, she said.
“He’s still touching so many people’s lives on a daily basis,” she said. “We’re just having to go a different direction. We had this plan in place, it’s not going to happen anymore, but it’s still going to be fantastic.”
http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2009/08/airforce_slaydon_082809w/