Meet Hannah

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Spring 2022

Because of Spaulding, patients like Hannah Strom have a new path forward.

While traveling to a training session with her college rowing team in 2020, a devastating car accident left then-19-year-old Hannah with a collapsed lung, broken bones and a traumatic brain injury. She was airlifted from a hospital in Florida to Massachusetts General Hospital in a medically induced coma. After her treatment at Mass General, Hannah would spend the next 100 days at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital.

Hannah came to Spaulding unable to walk, talk or get out of bed. She was admitted to Spaulding’s Disorders of Consciousness Program, directed by Dr. Joseph Giacino. Grounded in deep research, this program had Hannah’s whole rehab team working together to design special assessments to determine her level of self and environmental awareness and establish an effective means of communication. Research is critical to discovering new and improved therapies to enhance recovery and quality of life for people with severe brain injuries, like Hannah.

By helping us invest in leading-edge rehabilitation technology and equipment, clinical training on innovative therapy approaches and ground-breaking research, donations to Spaulding have an impact on our patients today and for years to come.

Hannah made steady progress, starting with tracking objects with her eyes to using single words. Her physical therapist, Abigail, helped Hannah find her strength in the hardest moments of her recovery. “She never gave up on me,” says Hannah. “Now I want to help bring hope to others in the same situation.” When she was discharged home, Hannah no longer needed a feeding tube and could walk with a walker. And she had a new vision for her life.

Abigail had become Hannah’s mentor, role model, and the inspiration for her new career path—to become a physical therapist herself. “I would not be where I am, back at school and taking classes, without Spaulding,” says the college junior.

Hannah interned at Spaulding last summer, walking through the halls where she herself had relearned how to walk. She has also shared her personal story at brain injury professional meetings to increase awareness that brain injury is a lifelong condition, not a one-time event.

Today, Hannah is back out on the water, rowing and racing. Her devoted mother, Gail, says that when she picked Hannah up from a recent session, Hannah was glowing—and looked like herself again. Gail chose to make a gift to Spaulding’s Annual Fund because her daughter is a living example of the impact rehabilitation can have on a person. “Spaulding was where Hannah came alive,” she says. “We are forever grateful.”

Spaulding donors help make impossible recoveries possible. Just imagine what you will make possible for patients like Hannah—and their families—with your generous gift today.