DALLAS - No title is more important to Allen Vaught than being dad.
But his year in Iraq as an Army Captain nearly cost him his life.
"I noticed a very loud explosion," Vaught said, remembering that day in June 2003. "This column of dirt rose in the air."
An IED detonated under his Humvee in Sadr City.
Vaught, 40, has a Purple Heart to show for his broken back. But he still lives with the incessant ringing in his ears from that day.
It's called Tinnitus, and is the most common service-related disability for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The hearing problem makes it difficult to focus and even sleep.
"For me, it's sporadic throughout the day," Vaught said. "Sometimes the ringing can be so loud it's hard for me to focus on anything else."
"People say 'My ears ring, too.' But this is different," said Will Rosellini, CEO, Microtransponder. "The Tinnitus that's debilitating these patients is actually crippling their lives."
He might be an unlikely savior.
Rosellini played baseball and was drafted by the Arizona Diamondbacks as a pitcher. But at 22, he decided to leave sports for science.
"I was physically the same as a lot of guys in baseball," Rosellini said. "But my nervous system wasn't able to control pitches like they could. So I was fascinated with the idea of 'how is the nervous system basically managing this body.'"
Rosellini's company, Microtransponder, is now testing a therapy to help Tinnitus patients.
Early tests, he said, have reduced ringing in some patients' ears by more than half.
Using a tiny, implanted leed on the vagus nerve in the neck, the therapy stimulates nerves to improve patients.
Belgium is already testing the therapy and clinical trials in the U.S. will begin next year, Rosellini said.
"I have a blog and I get e-mails from five or ten people a day who say, 'I'll fly to Belgium to get this done. This is ruining my life,'" he continued.
Vaught knows there are worse battlefield injuries.
But he hopes an unlikely scientist might help heal his unseen scar.
E-mail jwhitely@wfaa.com
