Bryan Stow, the Bay Area man who was brutally beaten outside a Los Angeles Dodgers home game in 2011, is embracing a new life back on two feet.
After years of steady improvement, Stow was back at the hospital that got him walking again Saturday, but not for a bout of treatment. He was there to say "thank you."
"I can now move my arms up to my face," he said. "I couldn't even raise them five years ago."
Saturday represented a reunion for Stow with doctors and nurses at the Rehabilitation Center of the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, a homecoming that pooled together more than 300 former patients that the facility has supported over the past 45 years.
Back in March 2011, Stow and some of his friends were waiting for a taxi outside Dodger Stadium wearing San Francisco Giants jerseys when two men attacked them, nearly ending in Stow's death.
Stow's skull was fractured after he fell to the ground and then the attackers kicked him in the head and ribs, resulting in rehabilitation process that has been lengthy and arduous.
"I went through two-and-a-half years not remembering anything," he said.
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Stow's mom, Ann, and his speech therapist, Kathy Castillo, says he has been fighting moment by moment ever since that almost fatal night.
"When Bryan came to us he was doing very little, very little," Castillo said. "Stow’s road to recovery looked bleak. He was clinging to life in a coma, but then something happened, his inner strength rapidly improved his healing."
That personal determination is emanating throughout the care facility.
"Now seeing him in a place where he's helping other people is what we hope for with him," Deb Steele, a physical therapist, said.
Stow isn't 100 percent just yet, but according to his dad, Dave, he’s getting there.
"He's been through some rougher roads than this, but he's overcome them. Dave Stow said. "Now it's pretty smooth the rest of the way."
Looking forward, Stow hopes to speed up his recovery and get back to the active life he once had.
"I would like to be running on the beach, but I can't right now," he said.
In the meantime, Bryan is fighting hate as an anti-bully motivational speaker.
