Luke Sprengle
U.S. Special Forces
Our story starts a long time ago. We met in the 8th grade, and well, the rest is history as they say. Luke joined the Army in June 2006 after we graduated from Colorado State University where he majored in Political Science and Economics, and minored is History. We got engaged in December 2006, and married in December 2007. Instead of going on a honeymoon, we decided to add to our family by getting a puppy, and 6 months later we got a second pup. Our fur babies are Mich and Ta and they are still very loved members of our family. Luke graduated the Special Forces Qualification Course in April 2008, and has been with 3rd SFG(A) ever since. Prior to his third combat deployment we decided it was time we started a family and we were thrilled to announce our pregnancy to the world just days before he deployed. In January 2013, I got the phone call that Luke had been injured when the vehicle he was traveling in rolled over. I was 28 weeks pregnant at the time. I was informed he had fractured the base of the skull, and 10 hours later he suffered a major stroke. That was the day I walked away from a job I loved as a clinical Dental Hygiene Instructor at Fayetteville Technical Community College. Once Luke was medevaced to Germany, the doctors decided to remove a large portion of his skull due to the brain swelling. As a result of the stroke, Luke suffers from left side hemiparesis, and a left visual field cut. A month after his injury we headed to Craig Hospital in Denver, Colorado for the rehabilitation phase. Ten days after we arrived in Colorado I went into preterm labor and delivered our baby boy, Greyson. Luckily, the hospital was connected to Luke’s so he was able to be wheeled over and was present for the birth. Thankfully, Greyson only spent ten days in the NICU before I was able to take him home. Luke was discharged from in-patient rehab after four months, and he spent another four months doing outpatient rehab before we finally moved back to our home in North Carolina.
Luke has come a long way since his injury occurred. He re-learned to walk, and can even "jog" for short periods of time with his IDEO leg brace, however, he still has limited functional movement in his arm. His vision loss from the field cut never returned but he has since been cleared to drive with modifications done to his truck. Luke will be medically retired from the Army at the end of May 2016 and we will be moving back to Colorado. Our plan is to take this transition one step at a time: move, find a new place to live, I’ll return to work part-time, and he will take his time figuring out what his next steps will be and what his future holds.