Brain Injury Victim Learning from Scratch

Springfield, OR“It’s only by the grace of god that I am here,” says Christina, who suffered a brain injury after slamming her car into the side of a mountain 10 years ago. To this day she can’t remember what happened.

When Christina came out of her three-month coma, she had a lot of catching up to do. “I had to learn how to do everything like I was a baby—how eat and drink, go to the bathroom and not on the floor in my sister’s living room,” she says. “All I remember when I woke up in the hospital was that it was bright and light. I remember my sister coming to get me and I asked if I could stay with her because I didn’t know where else to go, and she was looking after my two sons. Now she had to look after me and I will be forever grateful."

Christina also can’t remember why the car accident occurred or why she was speeding. “I was DOA when the ambulance arrived at the scene and they had to use the jaws of life to cut the top off my SUV to get me out,” she explains. “If not for Eugene Sand and Gravel I would have died. They were working on the road, saw me fly by and called 911; they knew I was an accident waiting to happen.”

(Ironically, advances in protective equipment such as seatbelts and airbags—and in Christina’s case possibly cell phones--may have led to an increase of TBI over the past decade or so, according to Jonathan Lifshitz, an assistant professor at the Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center at the University of Kentucky Chandler Medical Center. People who once would have died from their injuries in a car crash now live with severe brain injuries.)

She slowly began to recover and thought about the accident. At first Christina thought that the brakes failed on her Ford Explorer—a fair assumption: Ford has recalled its Explorer several times and it is notorious for brake problems. Christina also says there weren’t any skid marks on the road and that she “flew” right into the side of the mountain. “There was an investigation and there was no evidence that I even attempted to stop,” she says. “I can’t remember what happened and I barely remember staying at my sister’s house for the two months after I was released from the hospital.”

“One of my first memories after the coma was picking up the phone in my hospital room and dialing numbers—I have always been good with numbers,” says Christina. “Trouble was, I didn’t know who I was calling. The phone was removed from my room.”

Christina had suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Almost 40 percent of traumatic brain injuries are caused by car crashes. And a few more statistics: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 5.3 million people in the US are living with long-term disabilities because of TBI. Furthermore, each year about 1.4 million Americans suffer a TBI, more than Americans who are struck by heart attacks.

To make matters a whole lot worse, Christina didn’t have vehicle insurance. The Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles requires that every driver must carry liability insurance for bodily injury and property damage coverage, and you are breaking the law if you drive uninsured. Fortunately for Christina, the state of Oregon has Personal Injury Protection (PIP), a version of no-fault insurance. It allows you and your passengers, regardless of who caused an accident, to have insurance coverage for "reasonable and necessary" medical, dental, hospital, surgical, ambulance, and prosthetic services incurred within one year after the date of an injury up to a maximum of $15,000.

“I’m unable to work due to my TBI--I’m getting social security benefits,” says Christina. “My doctors told me that I will be disabled for the rest of my life. I have problems with memory that damaged part of my brain. When I am stressed out I can’t remember anything. If I write something down I forget to pick up the paper that I wrote it on.”

Christina just turned 42. She is slowly learning how to live with a TBI but brain damage is forever; she will live the rest of her life with limitations.