Miracle Marine

Brandon Bailey does exercises with the help of his physical therapist Michelle Michels. Michels has been Bailey's therapist since the beginning. Photo: The Enquirer/Carrie Cochran.

When a Taliban bomb drops a six-ton Humvee in your lap and, 21 months and 21 operations later, you can run backward up a hill, you believe in miracles.

Gunnery Sgt. Brandon Bailey believes.

On Jan. 24, 2009, Bailey was riding in the last vehicle of a four-truck convoy in Afghanistan's Farah province when they hit the IED.

The explosion threw the Humvee 138 feet. Five of the six Marines inside were ejected. One remained.

"My vest got caught on the truck's frame," Bailey says.

The Humvee flipped and landed with the top gun turret atop Bailey's pelvis. His torso was bent, like an envelope's flap, with him facing the ground. And conscious.
...

After the Humvee came to rest on that cold January night, "four Marines lifted that thing off of me," he recalls. "No jack. Just four Marines. That's a miracle."

Read the rest of Brandon's extraordinary story here. It's great to see you doing so well, Brandon, and OOHRAH to the four Marines who lifted that thing off you!