Couple Fell Back in Love After Accident Stole His Memories. Now He Speaks Out for Other TBI Victims (Exclusive)
“Because of my physical recovery, people say, ‘Cody’s fine.’ I’m not fine,” Cody Bryant tells People.
Amanda Gillian
It’s easy to get caught up in the romantic story of Hermosa Beach couple Cody Bryant and Haley Woloshen, who thought she had been ghosted only to discover her new boyfriend Bryant was in a coma.
But the reality is the couple, who met in Hawaii almost two years ago, still face challenges with Bryant’s ongoing health battles, both in body and mind. While there have been great strides made in his physical progress, it’s his mind that poses the biggest challenge in recovery.
During a trip to Spain, Bryant was riding a moped in Ibiza when he was struck by a car and sustained a traumatic brain injury that left him in a coma and stole many of his memories, including the time he spent with Woloshen, 28.
It took a month before they were able to bring Bryant, 35, home on Sept. 11, 2022. He went directly into rehab at Rancho Los Amigos Rehab Center in Downey where he was treated for hemiplegia, a one-sided paralysis common after traumatic brain injuries.
“When I woke up, I was incoherent for quite a bit of time. I didn’t really understand I had been in an accident,” Bryant tells People. “Even when we made it back to California there were many times where I would look at my mom and ask ‘What am I doing here?’ I thought I just had a broken leg.”
After she realized what Bryant had been going through, Woloshen reached out to his loved ones – but it wasn’t until he returned to the U.S., and was well enough to use his phone again, that he saw the messages on his phone and saw what Woloshen had meant to him, even if he couldn’t remember himself.
Soon, they were talking again and she previously told People that “feelings started to bubble up” when they began spending hours in the car together every day en route to therapy. And by early 2023, romance had blossomed once again.
Courtesy Haley Woloshen
An early goal was to move back into his home, which was getting fitted for some handicap accommodations, but still had a lot of stairs. He had a strong network of friends and family helping him, and his mom Connie was constantly by his side.
“Every day, she and I would just walk up and down the hallways to try to figure out how to get me to walk well again,” Bryant says. “We would walk up and down stairs as much as I could handle, which wasn’t much, but I was determined to move back to my house.”
It wasn’t until Nov. 28, 2022 that he was able to move back into his apartment, which he shares with three roommates and is located a few blocks from Woloshen’s home.
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Woloshen tells People his rehab has allowed him to gain incremental function.
“Therapy has given him his hand back,” she says. “He’s wearing (a brace) now, but he can pick things up and use his fingers. And that’s something a lot of people never get to do again.”
Courtesy Haley Woloshen
Bryant has been a rock star when it comes to his physical recovery. He and Woloshen attended a wedding in Guatemala in March and went on a two-day hike up to Acatenango Volcano at the summit of Central America’s third-highest volcano. In June, they romped around Yellowstone.
But healing the traumatized brain has been much more challenging than any hike. In a TikTok post, Bryant shows how outwardly he’s the same good-time guy, ready for anything. But inside his mind cannot handle the stimulation and he has to hunker down in a quiet spot to gain control.
At first, Bryant attempted to reconstruct “the old Cody” from videos, texts and social media. He used a lot of energy convincing everyone he hadn’t changed, while struggling with memory loss and cognitive issues.
Bryant said he and his family believed he just needed to fix his body and he would be back to the same guy he was before the accident. They slowly came to the realization that wasn’t going to happen.
He has an incredibly close bond with his sister, who moved nearby in 2019 to be with him. She says she was initially frustrated while helping him in rehab because her normally energized, problem-solving extrovert was being so lethargic and distant.
“I was like, maybe if we push him as hard as we can through this therapy, he’ll be back to normal,” Rachel Bryant, 31, tells People. “You think it’s just this period of time where he’s different and he’s pushing to be a better place, and once we put the work in, he’ll be back to Cody, and that’s so not the case.”
Dr. Isaac Yang, a neurosurgeon and UCLA professor not associated with Bryant’s care tells People, “I never say that anyone ever gets back to normal. I don’t think that that’s possible. Some people make such remarkable recoveries, it’s as if they got back to normal. But in my career watching this, I don’t think anyone ever gets back to a hundred percent.”
Bryant, who focuses on his diet and physical care, has physical therapy every day for hours. The payoff is he looks more like himself every day, but there’s more to recovery than meets the eye.
“My physical recovery has been amazing, “ Bryant says. “So because of that, people are like ‘Cody’s fine!’ It’s frustrating because I’m not fine.”
Courtesy Haley Woloshen
He’s now come to accept the Cody he is now. But it has been more difficult for his old friends and family, especially his sister Rachel.
“He doesn’t have the memories, but I do,” she says. “And that’s grief on a whole other level.”
Woloshen, who says she didn’t really know much about pre-accident Bryant, believes she got a great version. Different doesn’t mean better or worse.
Bryant recently updated his GoFundMe page, saying that he’s fortunate that
