Stories
This page is to provide you with other remarkable ABI recovery stories about, and written by, the people I have had the pleasure to meet and become close with.
Holly Scott
In July 2017, 22-year-old Holly Scott began a 40-minute drive to her boyfriend’s house but didn’t arrive. Minutes from his home, her boyfriend found her car wrapped around a tree.
After emerging from a 15-day coma, Holly had to learn to walk and talk again. As well affecting her speech, balance and vision, the accident shattered her pelvis, fractured vertebras, and broke her hip, tailbone and both legs.
Holly has used this traumatic experience to educate others about the devastating effects of car accidents. Her accident and recovery are the subject of a seven-part web documentary, ‘Driven’. And in 2019, Holly shared her emotional story twice with 8,000 people, mostly school students, at the RAA Street Smart event.
Holly continues to do public speaking engagements on road safety and education to schools and other community groups. She has returned to same brain injury ward where her recovery began to share her story and started a Facebook group to support people with a brain injury.
Holly is now in partnership with SAPOL as their first ever road safety ambassador.
Lauren Spear
"My name is Lauren Spear, I am 29 years old and a qualified special education teacher.
My life before my brain injury was chaotic and active, but I loved every part of it. I graduated University in 2015, and began working as a teacher. Four years ago I was involved in a work place accident after falling off a piece of playground equipment whilst helping a struggling student. My accident left me recovering from a traumatic brain injury, affecting the way my brain sends and receives messages and information. I was diagnosed with Post-Concussion Syndrome, and also struggle with Occipital Neuralgia, Vestibular Migraine, Vestibular Ocular Mismatch, a cervical spine injury and a form of Narcolepsy. Some of my daily symptoms and injuries include neuro fatigue, cognitive overload, memory and concentration difficulties, head pain, visual difficulties, light and sound sensitivities, and mental health struggles surrounding the heartbreaking isolation a brain injury leaves you with. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to return to my teaching career.
My injury has taught me so much about myself; the strength I have, the resilience and perseverance I’ve shown, and the importance of putting myself and my recovery first. As part of my recovery, I decided to keep a daily journal, and have since turned my story into a blog, website and social media pages called The Orange Butterfly. I use this platform to educate the community about brain injury, and offer support and guidance for individuals going through their ongoing rehab and recovery.
Since my accident, I have taken my life on a different but rewarding path. I began working as a rehab mentor and am a board trainee at Brain Injury SA, I work as a disability inclusion trainer for JFA Purple Orange, have sat on a world-wide concussion panel and have been interviewed for numerous podcast channels.
You can read more about my story via the following link to my website, as well as my social media pages on both Facebook and Instagram."
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Laura McMahon
"I was studying for my final year of my advanced leadership degree, about to go on an exchange to Brighton, England next month and finally take a break from my hectic internship and job to go to a music festival in Byron Bay when my life changed forever. I was hit head on at 140kms per hour by a guy who had come into our lane on a main highway on drugs. Because of the sudden stop, I dissected my carotid artery, which caused me to have a massive stroke as well as a brain injury from the whiplash. I broke my arm in two places, ruptured my spleen, kidneys and bowels which resulted in me having a hemi colectomy. I broke my back which resulted in me having a fusion as well as causing blood to build up in my heart which only 3% of people survive. I fractured 3 ribs, my cheek bone, my hand, I even smashed some teeth.
That was 3 and a half years ago and I’m still in recovery. I had to learn how to talk again because of my aphasia, a language difficulty, and walk again. I go to One Rehabilitation Service on Anzac Highway for my speech, OT, physio and psych and I wouldn’t have smashed so many goals without them. I still struggle with my expression and figuring out what words go where but I have such an incredible team around me, supporting me every step of the way.
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I felt so isolated for 2 months when I was in hospital, and even worse and I got home so when I found the brain injury community, I felt like I’d found the place for me. When I first started going to the meetings, once a week for 10 weeks, I could barely speak so my dad had to come with me. By the end of it I could string together a few sentences and felt comfortable enough that I could go by myself. I now am a mentor for the youth reconnect program at Brain Injury SA, have spoken at events including brain injury awareness week and aphasia week, have participated in photo shoots and videos and am about to start a podcast about my experience – stay tuned! All though I would never wish this to happen to anyone and my life has gone a completely different direction to what I would have thought it would be, I wouldn’t change it."
Alexa Leary
"On July 17, 2021, life for Noosa triathlete Alexa Leary and her family changed in an instant.
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Lex suffered life-changing brain injuries in a horrific cycling accident while training on the Sunshine Coast. She spent two weeks in an induced coma in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH) and two months in the Neurosurgery Ward.
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Lex has had a very successful triathlon career winning a silver medal in the Junior World Titles in Switzerland only two years ago. Her dream was to represent her country in the Olympics but now she finds herself in the medal fight of her life to survive and move again.
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Lex’s strength and determination has inspired #moveforlex. #moveforlex is a connection across the community to encourage people to move for those that can’t and an inspired way to help Alexa connect with those supporting her recovery. The Leary Family now want to give those “movingforlex” the opportunity to help make a difference to ICU patients and families through fundraising."
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Great to see that she's back doing the things she loves! Please visit the 'Promotion' tab to donate to her cause and find out more about her, or use the link below:
Mia
"In August 2020, I sustained a traumatic brain injury during a football game. In the second quarter of the game I received a handball running into the forward fifty when I had my arms pinned to my sides by an opposition player who had run up from behind me. She threw my head and my body into the ground and flung her full weight on top of me. After lying face down for some time, I was finally able to roll onto my back and look up, everything was extremely bright and I had a searing pain shooting all around my head. After an MRI of my brain I received the diagnosis that the tackle had caused bleeding on my brain and a severe concussion.
Since the diagnosis I have had appointments with numerous specialists including a neurosurgeon, neuropsychologist, neurophysiotherapist, neuro-optometrist, audiologist and dietician. This team of specialists has been providing me with ongoing support to manage the symptoms from my concussion. The most significant symptoms that I have struggled with are light sensitivity, noise sensitivity, fatigue, headaches, changes in appetite and memory loss. I also learnt that as a result of my injury I have nerve damage in both of my eyes, blind spots in my vision, and convergence issues. To correct these issues, as well as the light sensitivity, I have to wear rose tinted glasses with prism lenses everyday. I am also managing the dysfunction in my autonomic nervous system by monitoring my heart rate and only exercising within certain limits.
The bleed on my brain has finally healed, but I am still struggling daily with persistent concussion symptoms (also known as post-concussion syndrome). I still have to wear earplugs to mute the noise when I am out in public, I avoid driving at night, and I have to take a lot of breaks during the day to manage my fatigue. I am currently working as a lawyer but due to the issues with memory, concentration, headaches and fatigue, I can only work part time. I have had to defer my studies in my postgraduate degree so that I can solely dedicate my time to my job and my recovery. Persistent concussion symptoms can last for years after the injury, but can be managed with the right recovery plan. With a supportive team of specialists and the appropriate rehabilitation plan, I am slowly seeing improvements to my health and I am optimistic about a full recovery, however long it takes.
One of the biggest hurdles I faced with my injury was the lack of understanding and support from the entire football community. Other players were not educated about the symptoms of concussion, or the high prevalence of post-concussion syndrome. The outcome was that for almost a year I managed my recovery alone and without any social support. It is important to me that no other person playing football has the experience that I have had. For this reason I started my Instagram account "@concussiongram" to connect with others in the brain injury community, to bring awareness to this extremely common injury, and to empower any person playing a contact sport to know how to help themselves and those around them."
"Hi my name is Lachlan Miller I lived and grew up in Humpty Doo 60km south of Darwin where I was a qualified diesel mechanic.
I finished my apprenticeship on the 13/5/2013 which was like an early 21stbirthday present which I was going to celebrate on the 6/6/13. In my spare time I loved sport; I played AFL, cricket but I was better at rugby union. I had been to u/16’s and 18’s National Championships, I was also a junior coach at the Swampdogs where I played. In August 2013 I won my first rugby union premiership. I felt like my future was looking bright.
11/10/2013 driving home from work I crashed my car. I suffered life threating injuries when the main artery that supplies my brain with blood on the right side of my neck was opened. As a result I nearly bleed out. An ambulance was called, after saving my life on the side of the road they rushed me to the hospital more than 30 minutes away.
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Once arriving, X-Rays showed I had shattered C4 and C5 in my neck and broke my back (T7-T10). Because of the injury’s they had to fly me to Adelaide for life saving surgery. I then was in a coma for 38 days.
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But it isn’t all doom and gloom. Since the life changing crash, I have been a bit lucky, optimistic and always try to keep a big smile on my face. A few years after my crash, I was lucky enough to play cricket again for The Woodville Rechabites in Adelaide. It has been hard but so rewarding to get back to club sport and now I have had the chance to give back by coaching juniors at the club. The achievement I am most proud of since my brain injury is when I optimistically joined an 8-ball team at Chalker’s in Glenelg and played three seasons of competition 8-ball. It is a very tough competition, but I feel like I won when I fell in love with one of my team mates. After playing together for 6 months I asked her out she said yes and 5 years down the track I proposed to her and she said yes again. Probably one of my best memories and proudest moment since my brain injury."
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Locky Miller