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Cody Bryant, a brain injury survivor, is opening up about his remarkable recovery journey and evolving purpose in life
He made headlines last year after sharing with PEOPLE and others how he lost his memories in an accident while on vacation and had to rediscover himself and his girlfriend at the time
Beyond advocacy work, Bryant continues pursuing adventure travel, including a solo hike of Mount Kilimanjaro
It was an irresistible headline and about an “insane situation”: a couple who had to fall back in love after the boyfriend lost his memories in an accident.
More than a year after Cody Bryant’s romance with Haley Woloshen first drew national attention — in PEOPLE, on the Today show — he is sharing an update about healing from the brain injury that caused all the commotion as well as where things stand with Woloshen now.
The good news? He’s finally “feeling like I’m me.”
That wasn’t always the case. Far from it.
On Sept. 6, 2022, Bryant was in a horrific moped crash while on a trip with friends to Ibiza, off the coast of Spain. He was left in a five-day coma before his family was able to get him to America for treatment.
“In the early days, they didn’t know if I was even going to live, and if I was going to live, they were not sure I’d make it out of a vegetative state,” Bryant, 37, says now. “So the outlook was very bleak.”
Back home in California, Bryant reconnected with Woloshen while in a rehab facility, though his brain injury caused him to forget their brief but ardent bond.
“I saw all the messages I had sent to Haley and I was like, ‘Whoa, I must have liked this girl,’ ” he previously told PEOPLE
Amanda Gillian
He had: Their whirlwind romance began in Hawaii in August 2022 after they crossed paths at a bar and realized, by chance, that they lived in the same town.
When they returned to the U.S. from their vacations, just as things were heating up, Bryant was injured and appeared to “ghost” Woloshen, 29, who only realized the truth in the days afterward.
The pair began chronicling their unusual love story on social media and then in news articles. Bryant says that they gave it a good go but decided to amicably split in February 2025. They remain friends, he says. (Woloshen declined to be interviewed.)
“As our lives developed, we realized we weren’t super aligned in what we wanted in the future,” Bryant says. “But I’m so appreciative of my time with her and I think she thinks the same as well.”
He has concentrated on getting back physically, mentally and emotionally to where he was before he was struck by a truck while riding a moped in a head-on crash — a possibility that, the last time he spoke with PEOPLE in 2024, didn’t seem even remotely real to him.
But hard work and a good attitude, not to mention new rehabilitation techniques, have paid off for Bryant, he says.
These days, he even goes for cold-water dunks in the ocean near his Hermosa Beach home to stimulate his mind and body.
He chronicles his progress on his TikTok and Cody’s Comeback Instagram account. A few months ago, he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania with the help of guides. He recently returned from a trip to Puerto Rico and, this month, he’ll travel to Chile to climb in Patagonia.
Bryant says his parents worry about him — thinking about what went wrong in 2022 — so he makes sure he gives them his itinerary and stays in touch. And he accepts more help than he did before his crash.
Courtesy of Cody Bryant
He also just organized the second annual Cody Bear Volleyball Tournament fundraiser. The first was done by his friends for his own benefit, but he decided to pay it forward on Dec. 6 by raising money for another local man, Matthew Cobley II, who suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2022 when he was hit on his bicycle by a motorist.
Cobley has a donation page to help with his ongoing medical costs.
“Recovering from traumatic brain injury is a huge financial cost, and insurance doesn’t pay much beyond the acute stage,” Bryant says.
He realized that his own recovery has been “incredible and blown away expectations,” and he wants to give hope to others with brain injuries because “health care did not give me much hope.”
“Health care did an incredible job of saving my life, and I’m so grateful for that, but past the acute care there’s a huge gap,” he says. “What do you do afterward? How do you get your life back now that you’re alive?”
He says he wishes he knew a couple of years ago what he has learned about that post-acute phase. “My recovery would’ve happened so much better and easier,” he says. “It still would stink and be difficult, but I could expedite and improve it with the knowledge I have now.”
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Courtesy of Cody Bryant
Courtesy of Cody Bryant
“Now that I’ve started coming out of it and into a normal life, I’m like — what do I do now? I have a new life in front of me,” he says. “So it’s like endless opportunities, but also you can get overwhelmed.”
Putting on the charity event in December was “one of the best days of my life,” and he is now working with a stroke survivor to create mentorship and support systems for brain injury survivors transitioning from acute care to independent life, he says.
He’s been dating a bit, too, and pondering the future.
“Prior to my accident, any job was mainly a way to make money, but now I feel like I have a purpose,” he says. “I’ve gone through something that gives me a way to help other people.”
Despite his newfound caution, in the wake of his injury, he still has an adventurer’s soul and a readiness to see the world. He says his mom used to tell him, “Cody, stop living life like you’re invincible.”
“I joked with her after the accident, although she did not find this funny, and said — ‘Well, mom, I kind of proved that I am.’ ”
Read the original article on People
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source uk.style.yahoo.com ’
