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Disability Community - Member Type: Person with a Disability
Disability Type: Neurological
Disability Name: Traumatic Brain Injury
Disability Description: Traumatic Brain Injury survivor - comatose 2 weeks
Assistive Technology: Cane
Adaptive Sports: Handcycling, Quad Rugby, Rowing, Sailing, Skiing - Alpine, Wheelchair Tennis, Other
How have you overcome obstacles?: The Life We Lead Creates the Brain We Have

 

I, Charles Manning Brugh, am a 17½⁺ year survivor of a near-fatal automobile accident that left me with severe “permanent” brain damage.  As a Traumatic Brain Injury survivor (comatose 2 weeks), I‘ve been forced to rebuild my entire persona - mind, body, and soul - from the ground up.  Of my own volition, I have determined how to affect the wholesale remapping and restructuring of my intricate neural network (this is neuroplasticity).  Essential to sustained rehabilitative success is physical, psychological, and cognitive fitness.  Inherent multiple challenges of adaptive sport promote health and fitness in these critical attributes concurrently.  Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) continues to challenge in ways I never knew possible.  I have spent, and continue to spend, an inordinate amount of time, effort, blood, sweat, tears, pain, and money rehabilitating my cognitive, physical, and spiritual health.  Am I "all better"?  Far from it.  However, I am continually improving – with limitless potential. 

 

Adaptive sport is phenomenal physical, psychological, and cognitive therapy.  Substantially enhancing quality of life, the athletic challenges of adaptive sport are central to my determined efforts to prevail over near-fatal Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).  Extensive and diverse, my expansive personal experiences with adaptive sport and purposeful outdoor endeavors span nearly two decades.  Since my motor vehicle accident of 21 March 1990, my athletic/therapeutic repertoire includes:

 

Adaptive Golf  - Adaptive Water Skiing/Knee boarding – Sailing; in 2004 I lived on a 100ft., hand-built, 3-masted, wooden tall-ship for 5 months anchored in the ports of Jonesport, Rockland, and (briefly) Cutler, Maine - Climbing walls (indoor & outdoor) - Multi-day bicycling tours - Sea-kayaking trips - White water rafting trips (multi-day) - Canoeing trips (multi-day) - Camping (throughout central and north Florida, Michigan, and the Colorado Rockies) - Adaptive Surfing - High & low ropes courses - Fishing (freshwater and saltwater) –  Off-road Mtn. Biking - Rock Climbing - Parasailing - Adaptive Alpine Skiing - Wheelchair Rugby (Brooks Bandits/United States Quad Rugby Association – Atlantic South division) - Wheelchair Tennis (First Coast Tennis Foundation/Brooks Wheelchair Tennis League) -  Competitive Handcycling - Adaptive Rowing (Jacksonville University/Brooks Adaptive Sport and Recreation Program)

 

Neurophysical skill needed to compete in adaptive sport is extensive, and, at times, overwhelming - particularly for a Traumatic Brain Injury survivor such as myself; timing, eye-hand coordination, balance, information processing, fine and gross-motor skills, communication, visual-spatial relations, attention, judgment, memory, perception, and reaction-time are all required cognitive abilities.  With enough purposeful effort, repetition, and focused attention, cognitive and neuromuscular skills are reacquired and enhanced.  I am rarely satisfied - the bar is always raised.  I fondly refer to this as my ‘achievement addiction’.  While I never subject others to the same level of scrutiny, in any endeavor I hold myself to the highest of standards.  I am my own worst critic.  I am my own best critic. 

 

I possess an aggressive spirit.  I am also a highly competitive person.  For over 17 years, multiple physical and cognitive deficits necessitated competition primarily against myself in unrelenting efforts to rewire and reconstruct my mind, body, and soul.  For nearly two decades, I have used adaptive sport to promote and enhance neuroplasticity in my traumatically injured brain.  I have progressed to the point that my rehabilitative focus again includes competition against other athletes.  Training, rehabilitation, and competition are complementary endeavors.  For this reason, athletic training, practice, and competition are central to my continued rehabilitation.  I now practice and compete with others challenged by disability – fantastic!  Coupling self-directed neuroplasticity with the diverse cognitive and physical challenges of adaptive sport, I am overcoming severe, “permanent” brain damage to a degree few thought possible.  I make remarkable progress by applying my God given intelligence, talents, and tenacious determination, to many adaptive sports.  The life we lead creates the brain we have…    

 

- Charles M. Brugh

 

 

Social

Relationship Status: Single
I'm looking for: Friends
Height: 5'11" - 6' (179 cm - 183 cm)
Weight: 221 lbs - 230 lbs (101 Kg - 105 Kg)
Hair Color: Blonde
Eye Color: Blue
Religous Background: Christian
Languages: English

 

Business

Professional Area: Other
Educational Level: College Graduate
Job Title: Adaptive Athlete/Public Speaker/Traumatic Brain Injury survivor
Areas of Expertise: Traumatic Brain Injury
Current Status: Other Self-employment

 

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