CenterSeatFE

Hello to everyone. I am just looking for some experiences from anybody who has had a head injury. I received a moderate concussion last May and I submitted the CT scan and neurological exam to the FAA (both stating i was fine). Obviously, they promptly sent me a letter back telling me that my medical was now revoked and to send it to them or else!!!! The documentation stated that I can resubmit a new CT scan and neurological exam in a year to possibly have my medical reenstated. Is there anyone who has had a similiar experience and was able to obtain their medical or am I in for a long and drawn out battle?? Any advice or experiences would be appreciated!!

Dog Breath

You may want to contact Virtual Flight Surgeons . They have an excellent reputation in assisting pilots regain their medical.

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It's the least I could do, so never let it be said I didn't do the least I could do.

rickair7777

??? Why would they revoke your medical for an old injury which had already been evaluated as healed? This doesn't make any sense. I can vouch for virtual flight surgeons too, get a hold of them or another aviation medicine consultant.

EvilGN

I had a closed head injury when I was in navy flight school and it took 8 months to convince the powers that be that I was safe to fly...so proving to whoever that you are ok, is a time consuming paperwork drill at best

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On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to Zero

CenterSeatFE

Just to clarify, the injury wasn't an old one. Basically, after it happened and I aquired all the pertinent information from my examinations, I sent the information in to the FAA and the rest is history. I spoke with a regional flight surgeon today and the outlook is somewhat promising as in the only thing i need to do is resubmit a new CT scan and a neurological exam. But even with those being "normal" it's no telling what the FAA will do.

rickair7777

If it happened last May and you are not suffering any ill effects, I'm sure you will get your medical back without paying an outside consultant. If you're still in the Nav and don't need an FAA medical to make a living, you can probably just wait them out.

copcar1988

I had a concussion about 2 months ago in a skiing accident where I also broke my shoulder. Everything is all healed up these days, but I was out of work for about 5 weeks.

I'll report my broken shoulder when I get my new medical in the fall, but there is no way I'm reporting the concussion. I'm 23, in great shape, never had a concussion before, and my head scans came back fine, but after talking to several people, they advised against reporting the concussion due to stories like yours. One of the stories came from a captain that I recently flew with. I guess he had a buddy that had a concussion where everything was fine with the CT scans and all, but when he reported it to the FAA same thing happened to him. His medical was pulled right away. He said it has been over a year and he still hasn't gotten it back.

That story is why that captain didn't report his past concussions either, and he has had 2 of them. Both were from skiing accidents when he was a skiing instructor where people ran into him and knocked him out.

Sorry to hear about your head injury, but it seems you're going to have a long uphill battle on this one.

rickair7777

Be careful! If you report the shoulder injury, the FAA or AME might want to look at the medical records ...those records will also have the head injury noted. How are you going to explain that?

whiskerbizkit

be very careful, that Cape Air pilot didn't not report his medical condition and got prison!
I know someone that also got a concusion and the FAA said 2 years.

CenterSeatFE

Not reporting anything certainly crossed my mind and I even had several pilots tell me the same thing. However, lying on a federal document weighted heavily on my mind so I chose the safe route even though it has and probably will cause a lot of head aches. But I am not dependent upon my medical right now for a paycheck so that decision was a little bit easier to make. The situation became more gloomy in regards to the Navy as I was denied a waiver a couple weeks ago and recommended to be grounded for another 12 months. The Navy required me to have this neuropsychological examination done and based off the results they determined that I am not fully recovered. This was a 4hr test that involved a lot of short term memory stuff and according to the results I am not up to par. The good thing is that the FAA does require this test so all I can do is hope for the best.