WALTER REED MEDICAL CENTER, Md. — Through labored, shallow breaths and the mechanical pauses of a ventilator, Air Force fighter pilot Captain Brad “Full” Nelson struggles under the spell of an induced coma. His squadron mates recount the accident that nearly led to his death.
“We went to the bar Friday night after we’d been drinking at the squadron for a few hours,” said Captain Jerry “Can” Stanford. “Full is pretty aggressive, and he bellied up to start a tab. There was a beautiful girl there with her friends—a blonde I think, probably an eight, at least. She looked at him and said, ‘Not interested.’ It looked like it didn’t phase him. He broke off, reoriented, and acted. Primo OODA loop, right brah? Next shot was ‘I’m a pilot.’ I think she frowned, turned her head away, and he went down in flames. Collapsed”
Bar patrons corroborated the story, saying it looked like the pilot was kneecapped. The bartender called 911 immediately, saying he’s seen similar injuries in recent years. “Other jobs are cooler now,” bartender Jevon Richards Jr. said. “Chicks want dudes with instagram accounts and muscles, not guts of steel.”
While waiting for the ambulance, Full’s heroic wingmen kept him alive. “We told him things like, ‘You’re still a pilot, dude. You still got your wings.’ That seemed to keep the air in his lungs.”
At the Walter Reed, Full’s doctors are reticent.
“He suffered something called involuntary comminuted ego, which means his ego is in several pieces like a broken bone,” Flight Surgeon Roger “Jolly” Rogers said. “There’s probably still some of it on the floor of the bar that didn’t get recovered. It will take months of pick-upucational therapy to rebuild it.”
“I would not want to be a nurse on his floor.”
“He’ll never walk the same again, and we’re already having conversations about prosthetic egos that will allow him to fly. He’ll have scars, too.”
His family says they’ve been told, he will be able to start the normal recovery protocol. He will be allowed to tell hospital staff and patients that he’s a pilot.
“He’s lucky to be alive,” Rogers said. “He’ll eventually get a therapy dog, because let’s be honest, dogs will love a guy even if he is a pilot. When Full gets stronger, we’ll recommend strengthening exercises, like telling women that he’s a nuclear engineer or lives with his parents while he codes, just so he sees that he’ll be all right on the other side of a disinterested reaction.”
For Tyndall Air Force base, this is the second pilot in three months to suffer similar injuries. In an earlier case, the aviator had to be airlifted from the beach after a Navy pilot got inside his OODA loop during a beach volleyball game.
R.J. Williams is an author of military history with noted expertise in Ancient texts, especially Thucydides and his account of the Polynesian War. His wartime biographies have been praised as a nexus of Dr. Suess, Louis L’amour, and Danielle Steele.