Shopping, singing, going to school—you'd never know she suffered a brain injury.
For Jessica, age 15, life as she knew it was interrupted when a car struck her from behind as she was walking to a bus stop. After four and a half hours of brain surgery and being in a coma for 12 days, she went to Brooks Rehabilitation Hospital.
"I did all the therapies: occupational, cognitive, speech and physical," she says. "Then I finished with outpatient therapy."
Stated quite plainly, she put in more hours of therapy a day than most kids her age spend watching television. But Jessica thrived on Brooks' intensive approach. She remembers, "Trying to walk was tough. But I had to do it even if I didn't feel like it. They pushed me. I'm glad they did."
Within a few months of the accident, Jessica no longer needed the aid of a walker and was ready to return to life and school. Today, she sings in the advanced choir and likes to spend her free time doing what many teens do best—going shopping.