Dr. Ko is featured in the movie “Back Walking Forward” about her patient, Eric. A car accident left Eric with a severe traumatic brain injury and years of recovery. Dr. Ko has been so inspired by his life that she approached filmmaker Kavery Kaul with the story. Dr. Ko met Ms Kaul after she operated on the filmmaker’s close associate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuhJjcT1nD0
THE FILM
Back Walking Forward tells an inspiring story about the aftermath of brain injury. A car accident left Eric with traumatic brain injury. Modern medicine enables most brain injury patients to survive coma, but what happens after that? On the unpredictable road to recovery, an active young man suddenly bound to a wheelchair, unable to start college, Eric struggles to relearn life skills, as he searches for a place in a once-familiar world. His family must redefine happiness, as they too search for a “new normal”. They wander the borderland between hope and despair. Will Eric walk again?
According to the International Brain Injury Association, traumatic brain injury is the prime cause of disability worldwide. Roadside bomb explosions leave young men and women with this “signature wound” of today’s wars. In conflict zones, military and civilians both share the risk. At home, a car accident, a sudden fall, a sports injury leaves so many lives forever altered — without warning.
Back Walking Forward puts a much-needed human face on this major public health issue. Eric’s parents and neurosurgeon give us the caregiver’s perspective and the medical context. At the same time, filmmaker Kavery Kaul focuses on Eric, a lively, capricious, defiant main character who engages and surprises us, in this unusual story filled with laughter, determination and love.
