Owen Suffers Shell Shock and is Evacuated to England
Poet involved
What happened
In March 1917, Owen falls down a well at Bouchoir and is momentarily stunned; in mid-April, he is blown up by a shell explosion while asleep, suffering severe concussion and spending several days unconscious among the remains of a fellow officer. He is diagnosed with neurasthenia (shell shock) and evacuated to Netley Hospital in Hampshire.
Literary impact
This traumatic experience, which Owen later described in harrowing detail in his letters, provided the psychological and physical shock that would fuel his most devastating poems. The concussion and shell shock left him with recurring nightmares and headaches, but also gave him an intimate understanding of mental trauma that he would explore in works such as 'Mental Cases' and 'Disabled'.
Source: Wikipedia
