Amnesia victim starts to rebuild his life

LACEY, Thurston County — Seated beside the stranger he once asked to marry, Jeff Ingram says his brain feels like it has "a bunch of peg holes in it."

The holes are where a lifetime of memories once dwelled. Now, after an extended bout of amnesia, he said they're empty of nearly all recollections gleaned over 40 years of life. No memories of childhood, graduations, jobs, family or the woman he invited to share his life.

Slowly but surely, his fiancée, Penny Hansen, is helping fill in the gaps.

"Everything is new to him," she said. "He's like a sponge right now."

Ingram and Hansen faced dozens of reporters from all over the country at a news conference Wednesday to hear the couple explain what it's like to piece together a new life as "strangers" feed him bits from a past he's forgotten.

On Oct. 22 Ingram appeared on a television broadcast from Denver seeking information about his identity. He said he had no idea who he was or how he ended up in Colorado.

Hansen's brother saw the television broadcast and contacted her. She supplied the Denver police with photos and information about Ingram's identifying scars.

Later that day Ingram flew to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and met Hansen. He said he had no idea who she was.

She said he didn't know their house, pets or his family. The life he returned to was new to him.

"Dissociative fugue"

Doctors have diagnosed Ingram with "dissociative fugue," a disorder in which a person unexpectedly begins traveling and then has no idea who he or she is. The disorder is most often related to stressful life events, according to the Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Hansen thinks the stress of the impending death of a friend triggered Ingram's condition.

"It's tough," Hansen said Wednesday. "But I understand this is a medical condition. We had a love story that was fantastic before."

She said they will get to know each other again slowly and decide about marriage later.

Hansen and Ingram met online three years ago and got engaged last summer. Ingram, who is an unemployed machinist, was on his way to Canada to see a terminally ill friend when he disappeared Sept. 6. He woke up in Denver without his car or wallet on Sept. 10.

"It was really early in the morning. The sun was starting to come up. I was half picking myself up off the ground and I had no idea where I was. I couldn't even remember my name. It was extremely terrifying," he said.

He had a severe headache.

"I walked six to eight hours ... into Denver Health," he said. He registered under the name John Doe and was shaking and in tears.

"They didn't know what to believe."

Police think he lived out of homeless shelters.

In Denver he became known as "Al" in the widely broadcast television interview, in which he said he had no memory of who he was and pleaded for anyone who recognized him to contact Denver police.

At Hansen's Olympia home, he's met friends he doesn't remember and has seen photographs of himself with Hansen.

"We've gone through the letters ... all the fun stuff we did," said Hansen, 40.

Overwhelming feelings

Being confronted with the reputation of the man he was is overwhelming, he said, although "he seems like a nice man. I'm trying to focus on the man I am now."

Not remembering is painful, he said. He has no idea about his first prom, his first kiss.

"All of that is gone. I stuff all my emotions inside," Ingram said. "Your past gives you your coping skills, your life skills."

When Ingram met Hansen he told her he had some sort of neurological problem and in 1995 had disappeared for nine months only to be found in Harborview Medical Center beaten and robbed, suffering from a head injury.

Even though Hansen knew about the possibility of amnesia recurring, "It's difficult to see him going through this," said Hansen, a policy analyst for the state Utilities and Transportation Commission.

Amnesia has been the subject of movies and TV shows, but because there has been so little research not much is known about it, medical experts say. The form of amnesia that Ingram is said to have — dissociative fugue, where he recalls how to read and write but not people or events — is so rare virtually nothing is known about it.

Nancy Bartley: 206-464-8522 or nbartley@seattletimes.com