on the chang gang

longreads:

Sam Brown, a soldier badly burned in an IED explosion in Afghanistan, undergoes an experimental treatment to ease his pain through a virtual reality game called “SnowWorld”:

When they first lowered the goggles over his eyes, Brown was not all that impressed. He found himself floating through a kind of glacial canyon, but the overall vibe was pretty kiddie. Snowflakes wheeled gently from a digital sky. Snowmen and penguins lined up on ledges along the fjord. The soundtrack was kind of lame, too. Kind of an upbeat chirpy world music, a catchy-against-your-will kind of thing that he’d never heard before. If you’ll be my bodyguard, I can be your loo-ong lost pal, the lyrics went.

But there was no question Sam felt very much inside this Disneyesque world on ice, and it was a hell of a lot better than being present while they yanked and pulled at his petrified shoulders. So he tried to get into the game. A few milligrams of Dilaudid didn’t hurt.

“Burning Man.” — Jay Kirk, GQ

See also: “Soldiers Take One Step at a Time with Prosthetic Limbs.” — John Pekkanen, Washingtonian, Aug. 1, 2011

GQ has been on it for a couple years lately with their features and investigative stories, good job EIC Jim Nelson.

1. iamdawt liked this
2. chickenpoxnoxplox liked this
3. darcibastiaan liked this
4. therevolutionbegins liked this
5. onthechanggang reblogged this from longreads and added:

   GQ has been on it for a couple years lately with their features and investigative stories, good job EIC Jim Nelson.

6. balloongirl liked this
7. magiclasso liked this
8. jameelainwonderland liked this
9. imathers liked this
10. rubyvroom reblogged this from longreads and added:

    Virtual Reality is apparently an effective theraputic tool for a lot of things. There was an article in the New Yorker a...

11. clearmysoul reblogged this from semasahin
12. rubyvroom said: there was an article in the New Yorker a couple years back about the same kind of VR treatment for PTSD: newyorker.com/reporti…
13. flowerofglass reblogged this from semasahin
14. semasahin reblogged this from longreads
15. 310topetaluma liked this
16. atavist liked this
17. watchmytoast reblogged this from longreads
18. brainmouth liked this
19. sostark liked this
20. esmiguerra liked this
21. perfectvillain liked this
22. redwoodcephalopod liked this
23. kleinbottle liked this
24. cvikli reblogged this from cvikli and added:

    Egyébként az a fasza ebben a Longreads tumbliban, hogy már a reblogok sebességéből (tíz másodperc az eredeti poszt...

25. citizenkerry liked this
26. longreads posted this