28 ALASKA SPORTING JOURNAL AUGUST 2019 | aksportingjournal.com
for officers who endure similar trauma
that she suffered.
“I’ll be able to talk to them through
all the things that happen when you
get injured in the line of duty. I didn’t
even know there was any help available
when I got hurt. I felt cut off, abandoned,
alone,” she says. “But there is an organi-
zation around there to help and now they
want to be a part of it. At least I have di-
rection now. I’ve got something to where
I can keep helping other people.”
The helping hands part has spilled
over to her home life as well. Grimes and
her boyfriend Nate, a wounded veter-
an, are establishing their own nonprofit
group, Wyldwoodz Wilderness Retreat.
Grimes will soon be an empty nester,
and she and Nate plan to build a cabin
on their homestead, which will house
disabled veterans and police officers.
Eagle seems like an ideal place for
healing injuries and PTSD symptoms.
“There’s nobody up here, it’s qui-
et, you’re not running into people and
there’s no drama. There’s no internet
unless you go to the library. Nothing. It’s
remote,” she says. “I wanted the peace.
I needed the peace. I needed to be able
to mentally deal with all the crap that
I’ve done in the last decade.”
The hope is any broken men or wom-
en who visit her retreat can spend a
day fishing, hiking or biking, or that she
counsels through the pending gig with
The Wounded Blue, can have someone
who understands that sh*t happens in
combat or on duty.
Grimes had an informal chat with a
friend and colleague who recently vis-
ited her homestead. The man was in-
volved in a shooting and opened up to
someone who can relate to when some-
thing goes bad.
“He said, ‘This is the place where I
can come and find peace and just let
everything go,’” Grimes recalls. “This is
the place where people can come, heal
mentally and kind of get away from that
rat race down there.” ASJEditor’s note: For more on The Wounded
Blue, go to thewoundedblue.org. Wyld-
woodz Wilderness Retreat’s website is wy-
ldwoodz.com. Check out discovery.com/
tv-shows/naked-and-afraid/ for more on
the Discovery Channel series.