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Cycling Event Focuses On Wellness, Healing Of Wounded Veterans

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The Wounded Warrior Soldier Ride is a rehabilitative cycling event that focuses on physical health, wellness and healing.

Warriors and veterans are fitted with adaptive equipment for two days of bike riding. The event is being held here in Pittsburgh this weekend.

Therese Mangham retired from the Army last year after 22 years of service.

She was injured in 2008 after an IED blast that resulted in traumatic brain injury.

The Wounded Warrior Project has helped her heal the invisible wounds.

"It was very difficult," said Mangham. "I wasn't getting a lot of support through the VA, and the Wounded Warrior Project, they came in and filled in the gaps where the VA wasn't."

"A lot of people don't realize that when our warriors come back from serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, they're just facing a whole different reality in trying to get accustomed back into civilian life," said Amanda Becker, a soldier ride specialist.

The soldier ride is a physical health and wellness program that helps wounded veterans get the care they need to live healthy lives.

The cycling event will last for two days and also provides peer support to the veterans.

"When I'm not strong, they carry me, and when I'm strong enough, I carry them," Mangham said. "So that's what we symbolize and that's what the purpose in being here is - to have that camaraderie."

Watch Pittsburgh Today Live Video - Soldier Ride Aims To Make Injured Veterans Whole:

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