From coma to the finish line
A catastrophic injury left Sunbury resident Tanner Fasold, 32, in a coma for months. Less than 2 years later, he’s running ultra marathons, starting a business and getting married — a comeback fueled by a fighter’s mindset and expert care when every second counted.
When his friend called with a challenge — a 50K trail race next weekend — Tanner Fasold didn’t hesitate. “Yeah,” he said, “I’m in.”
Never mind that a 50K is 32 miles of punishing, mountainous terrain. Never mind, he only had a week to train. And never mind that just over a year ago, he was relearning how to swallow.
On race day in September 2025, Mr. Fasold didn’t just finish. He placed second out of more than 100 runners, crossing the line in 4.5 hours. It was a stunning achievement for any athlete. For Mr. Fasold, it was a miracle.
“To be where I am now… it’s 1 in a million,” he says. “This just doesn’t happen.”
The fateful Friday
Before the accident, Mr. Fasold’s life was defined by pushing limits. A kid who loved the outdoors, he became a collegiate wrestler, an Ironman triathlete and an endurance runner. After college, he poured that same intensity into a 9-year career as a recruiter, working 12-hour days with the goal of one day starting his own firm.
In 2024, he was on the cusp of making that dream a reality. Then came Good Friday.
Mr. Fasold remembers hanging out with friends, hopping on the back of a friend’s truck and speeding off.
“About 30 yards from my driveway, there's a big S turn, and I flew off,” he recalls. “That’s the last thing I remember.”
The next thing he knew, it was August.
A test of faith
What happened in between is a story Mr. Fasold has pieced together from his family and his care team. His head was caved in. A friend, who is a nurse, rushed to his side and turned him over, preventing him from choking on his own vomit. An ambulance brought him to Geisinger Medical Center in Danville.
In the emergency room, the team jumped into action. “They figured I wasn’t going to make it,” Mr. Fasold says. But on-call surgeon Susan Baro, DO, and team spent several hours trying to stabilize him at his bedside until pressure in his abdomen became too high, requiring immediate, extensive surgery.
In the days that followed, neurosurgeon Edward Monaco, MD, performed multiple surgeries, including a craniotomy — removing a piece of Mr. Fasold’s skull to relieve life-threatening swelling in his brain.
Still, his condition was precarious. At one point, Dr. Baro delivered a devastating update to his parents.
“She said, ‘We’ve gone through the entire book of what we can do for Tanner,’” he recounts. “‘We can keep him alive, but only God will be able to save him at this point.’”
Mr. Fasold’s nurses were a constant, vital presence. His family recalls one nurse, Anthony Rodriguez, who would finish his 12-hour shift and then stay hours longer to make sure Mr. Fasold’s complex care was handled perfectly.
“They're part of the story,” he says. “It's not just me… it's my parents, my friends, my doctors, my nurses, everybody. That's why this is all possible.”
A light switch
Though Mr. Fasold had emerged from the deepest part of his coma in June, the world remained a blur. Then, in the first week of August, a switch flipped. He found himself in a hospital bed in Williamsport, where he’d lived and worked for years. He was confused.
“I looked around, and I'm like, ‘What am I doing in a hospital? I was just at my house,’” he says.
He picked up his phone, his fingers somehow remembering the familiar motions, and called his dad. His parents couldn’t believe it. After 6 months of silence, he was back.
He was discharged and began daily outpatient physical, cognitive and speech therapy. He went from being an elite athlete who weighed 170 pounds to a man of 120 pounds who had to relearn how to walk a straight line and balance a checkbook.
Speech therapy was crucial. “I had a hard time talking without salivating all over myself,” he says. “I couldn't swallow while speaking.” By March 2025, about a year after the accident, he completed all his therapies.
A greater purpose
Today, Mr. Fasold’s life is full. He’s marrying the girlfriend who stood by him through it all and finally launching his recruiting firm.
The traumatic brain injury left him with persistent head pain, a daily reminder of the accident. His response isn’t to slow down. It’s to move. Every day, he finds relief by running 6 to 10 miles or lifting weights — turning a consequence of his injury into a source of strength.
“I’d rather feel the pain than nothing at all,” he says. “Feeling comes from life and living.”
For others facing a long road, his message is clear: Mindset is everything.
“You can be your worst enemy, or you can be your own biggest believer,” he says. “Half the battle is in your mind.”
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