The driver's side of a 1988 Jeep was smashed against a tree. A little boy inside was screaming hysterically. His mother was lying beside him unconscious. The distraught child was Lynne Landsberg’s son Jesse, who had just celebrated his eighth birthday. He emerged without serious physical injury. However, for Lynne, it was an altogether different story. The accident left her with a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Lynne was in a coma for six weeks; initially, the doctors at Georgetown University Hospital (GUH) were unsure whether she’d live.

After four weeks at GUH, while still in a coma, she was moved to NRH. It took well over a month for her to go from being able to move her fingers on command to mumbling a word or two. She could not sit up. She could not hold a straw. She could not feel any emotions whatsoever. After four months in the hospital, she was finally able to go home, but required 24-hour nursing for almost two years.

In her former life, she was an effortless multi-tasker, a fast-talker and a quick thinker. She was a Rabbi and had speaking engagements across the country and composed her most powerful speeches in airplanes and taxis. The TBI has left her with persistent physical and cognitive challenges.

Today she is the Senior Advisor on Disability Issues for the Union for Reform Judaism’s (URJ) Department of Jewish Family Concerns and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, where she works to raise awareness of those with disabilities.

Photo Credit: Sharon Farmer/sfphotoworks