Route 66 enthusiast, permanent fixture on the iconic Santa Monica Pier, and proprietor of t-shirt retailer 66-to-Cali Inc., Dan Rice is a fully recovered Traumatic Brain Injury victim. His Hollywood life and high-paced track to a Ph.D. in Psychology was abruptly derailed in 2002 when he suffered severe brain injuries in a near-fatal car accident. His long and painful road to recovery began only after a long period of depression, anger, sadness, insomnia, vertigo, suicidal ideations, and an increasing inability to understand the world around him.
The shame and humiliation of being victim to brain injury inhibited Dan’s journey to find help and only after his altered behavior sent his life spiraling into dangerous depths did he seek help and begin his difficult journey into recovery. Nearly ten years later and now recovered, Dan realizes the need for understanding in both the public and the psychology field. Brain trauma’s hidden and misunderstood condition too often goes untreated resulting in anger, depression, broken families and ultimately suicide.
For every person diagnosed with breast cancer this year, five times will suffer a brain injury. With 650,000 new heart attacks annually, brain injury is up to three times more common. Prominent media sources cite the hallmark Iraq war injury now as being Traumatic Brain injury. The victims are all around, but their condition is cloaked from an unwillingness to seek help for risk of ridicule.
Dan Rice wrote End of the Trail to educate readers about brain injury and through his own dramatic experience, illuminate and inspire victims and their families as they struggle to claim back their loved ones from the mental darkness.
Dan Rice lives in California and can often be found driving historic Route 66 from “pier to pier”.