" He was in a horrific crash on one of those salt flats and his personality was permanently changed. He went from being pleasant to the person I knew him as-- c

" He was in a horrific crash on one of those salt flats and his personality was permanently changed. He went from being pleasant to the person I knew him as-- cold, strange and reclusive." If it was not traumatic brain injurie, like others mentioned, I can maybe give an other point of view. I guess it is the struggle of acceptance. Everyone knows accidents happen, but before you were in a bad one and have high self esteem, you likely believe, this won't happen to you. That would be unfair. "Those things cannot happen to me" - well, yes, they absolutely can happen to you. Why not to you? Why not to me? I had that with a actually not so serious sport accident, which still meant I could not do sport for years - which was a very serious crisis for me. WHY ME? Well, why not me. In hindsight I would rather think I was very lucky, to not have that accident, while being somewhere far off. Today I can even do (moderate) extreme sports again, ... but much more aware of what I am doing and how easy it is, to loose it all. So I can allmost say, today I am thankful for that accident, but I can also see, how such a accident can bring you to a very dark place of where you cannot get out. Your former boss seems to need his flying to get out of it at least for some time. I guess there are worse ways to cope with it.