ESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. (WKRG) — Corporal Corey Dingman and his wife, Michelle, were speechless when they walked into their brand-new Pensacola home Tuesday.
“I’m amazed. I’m amazed and grateful,” Corporal Corey Dingman said.
Dingman was nominated for the home after serving in the Army for seven years.
During his three deployments and service as a contractor in Afghanistan, he suffered a severe Traumatic Brain Injury. The injury left him with burns and injuries to his hearing, elbow, leg and right hip.
After surviving all that he faced in the military, Dingman later lost his leg in a car accident.
“Good or bad, I’m blessed. ‘Is it tough?’ Every single day,” Dingman said. “Every single day, I wake up I have to look at this leg. I have to accept it, and sometimes, it’s tough putting it on and getting out of bed and moving especially in an environment that’s not handicap accessible, and you learn to adapt.”
His new LENNAR home is now adapted to those needs.
“The home has all wider doors,” Helping a Hero Home Program Founder Meredith Iler said. “It has a roll-in shower, so he can be safe and actually go in there alone and not need help. He’s able to do everything from cooking and just some of the placement of the height of the counters and things like that help him be able to be independent.”
“He’ll be able to go through the whole house in his wheelchair; he’s not gonna have to hop anymore,” Corey’s wife, Michele Dingman, said. “I’m not gonna have to worry about hearing him fall because that’s scary. It’s really scary.”
The Dingmans said the home was better than they had ever imagined.
“This is gonna be life-changing. Life changing,” Michele Dingman said.