Peter Rosenbaum

Riding My Way Back

Robin Fryday, Peter Rosenbaum

Riding My Way Back is a short documentary that chronicles one soldier’s journey back from the brink of suicide. In 2010, Staff Sergeant Aaron Heliker returned from multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), in addition to third-degree burns and nerve damage from a roadside bomb. At his most desperate and isolated, on 42 medications and suicidal, Aaron is introduced to the unlikeliest of saviors: a horse named Fred. Through caring for Fred and building mutual trust, Aaron begins the difficult process of reconnecting to the world around him and healing the terrible, invisible wounds of war that had nearly defeated him.