COURTESY PAPER CRANE FOUNDATION
Making It Happen
Climbing for a Cause
| BY SOPHIE DINGLE
I
t was midnight at Kosovo camp, 16,300 feet up Mount Kilimanjaro, when Colby Bowers and his group awoke. They got dressed, gathered their equipment and set out to climb the last two miles of the mountain. For hours, the group of men proceeded to trek through switchbacks in the middle of the night, guided by their headlamps, pushed forward by sheer determination.
COURTESY PAPER CRANE FOUNDATION
Excellence and finally received a diagnosis: mild traumatic brain injury and chronic post-traumatic stress. Due to his balance issues, Colby would often fall and hit his head, worsening his condition. He couldn’t drive, walked with a cane, and couldn’t hold his young son, Brayden, for long periods of time. A year into his retirement, he was accepted as a patient at the Marcus Institute for Brain Health in Denver, and was able to get With 0.9 miles to go, they hiked across glaciers. The sun rose a new lease on life. Today, he no longer walks with a cane and behind them, illuminating the shadow of the mountain on the his memory loss is more manageable. clouds below. With a desire to help others And then, the summit. in a similar situation, he and his “Emotion and a sense of wife, Kerrie, dreamed of creating accomplishment were the first a nonprofit that would help things I felt,” Colby says. “After all veterans and first responders the trials, tribulations, hurdles and deal with trauma and get the roadblocks – we made it.” resources that they would need Colby Bowers is a retired Air to do so. In March of 2020, Force senior noncommissioned they launched the Paper Crane officer with over 23 years of service. Foundation with the goal of He was deployed nine times to furthering research into TBI different locations, including and PTSD, increasing awareness multiple tours in Afghanistan and and empowering those suffering Iraq, during which he developed from these conditions to rebuild chronic PTSD and suffered their lives. multiple traumatic brain injuries, Their main objective is to or TBI. aid in creating a system where It was in 2005 that he first TBI is accurately diagnosed at realized something was wrong. Colby Bowers and fellow Paper Crane Foundation climbers the onset of the injury in order to “I would lose things in my draw near to Kilimanjaro’s summit. provide the injured person with house, only to find them a few early treatment and avoid suffering a disability. The foundation is days later and have no recollection working to identify medical equipment that can accurately provide of how they got here,” he explains. an early diagnosis within minutes, and their hope is to begin clinical Tripping, clumsiness, losing his bearings and losing his train testing in the coming year. of thought mid-sentence were all signs that something was For the foundation, the expedition to Mount Kilimanjaro wrong – but a diagnosis was years away. After bouncing around provided an opportunity not only to conduct field research and from neurologists, psychologists and physical therapists, it gather data, but also to inspire. wasn’t until 2012 that he visited the National Intrepid Center of 50 | ONLINE AT WWW.STEAMBOATMAGAZINE.COM
