Wright injured an ankle during a parachute jump in a training exercise, and the Army started the process of discharging him on medical grounds. “But when you lose people, you rack your brain, asking if you could have done more.” Two soldiers he was working with killed themselves. But the responsibility for hundreds of soldiers became hard to bear.Ī few years into his career he was assigned to an infantry battalion just back from Afghanistan that had no chaplain, and checked in each week with a long list of soldiers struggling to readjust. Wright deployed to the Middle East, won awards and was promoted to sergeant ahead of his peers. And that’s who he was, always there for everyone.” “He once talked a soldier who was suicidal off a fifth-story ledge at midnight. “He was a super squared-away guy,” said Alexander Carrasco, who served with Mr. He chose to become a chaplain’s assistant in a Special Forces battalion - a job that focused on supporting soldiers in need. When he enlisted in the Army, top test scores gave him his pick of military jobs. What psychologists call “recreational therapy” can greatly increase mindfulness and feelings of accomplishment and create positive personal bonds. There is growing evidence that intense physical pursuits - rock climbing, mountain biking, skydiving - can be powerful tools for treating depression and traumatic stress. “And I feel at every step, they have used it against me.” Stuck behind bars, he began to feel that he was being punished for his time in uniform. “You could put me through years of therapy, give me all the meds in the world, and it would not help me the way that my art helps me,” he said.
Wright, charged with illegally climbing three structures in Cincinnati, that he can avoid prison time by pleading guilty to a felony and agreeing to therapy, probation and no more climbing.īut Mr. The judge set bail at $400,000, far more than Mr. “But we do know what his training is, and his training makes him at least potentially very dangerous for our community.” “The state has not known what his motivations are, what his experience is,” the Hamilton County prosecutor handling the case told a judge this spring. Wright’s time in the Army made him too dangerous to release. Wright, however, was charged with burglary - for entering a building illegally to take photographs - and several other felonies that could put him in prison for more than 25 years.Īfter the arrest, he was held without bond in 23-hour lockdown for more than two months. Urban explorers who are caught trespassing are typically charged with misdemeanors, if at all. He made stunning photographs and shared them under an alias on social media, where he attracted thousands of followers. He trespassed at night, jumping fences, edging across girders, scrambling up skyscrapers, stadiums, bridges and construction cranes, joining a fringe community of like-minded adventurers who call themselves urban explorers. So he started crisscrossing the country, chasing that feeling. It was better, he said, than any therapy he had ever tried. Going up hand over hand forced him to focus on the present instead of the past. Hoping to build a profession as a photographer, he had started scaling buildings to find different views, and realized it also offered a fresh perspective on life.
He had left the Army a few months before on a medical retirement after six years in uniform, but as a civilian, he soon felt disillusioned and directionless, struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder and thoughts of suicide.Ĭlimbing, he discovered, helped. Isaac Wright pulled himself up onto the crest of a 400-foot suspension bridge last fall, looked down at the specks of headlights below, and experienced a rush he had not felt since he was paratrooper in an Army Special Forces battalion.