April 19,2013

On the morning of April 19, 2013, while out for a typical morning run, Lauren was hit by a car and suffered a severe Traumatic Brain Injury.  Lauren was admitted to Cedars- Sinai Hospital in West Hollywood and remained in extremely critical condition for several weeks. Lauren had lived in New York at the time of the accident and was in LA on business. She did not have identification on her and remained a Jane Doe for several hours. Her prognosis was not good.

Upon arriving in LA, her parents were told that Lauren had a very slim chance of surviving. It had been explained that if she did survive, her brain damage was so severe that she would never be able to feed herself, walk, talk or understand spoken words.

Thankfully, Lauren has never been typical and she has spent the last 9 plus years proving all of the experts wrong.  Her recovery has been far from easy, she has traveled all over the United States working with specialists.  She works extremely hard and continues to fight to regain as much of her former life as possible.  Lauren has become the embodiment of the Murphy mantra, “Murphys Don’t Quit”  this has become her calling card.

Today she lives with her parents in O’Fallon MO and continues to focus on her recovery.  She maintains a very busy schedule of speech therapy, physical therapy and the all too often retail therapy trips with her Mother.  Lauren enjoys getting out in the community, meeting new people and sharing her story. She remains at a high risk for seizure activity due to the extent of her scar tissue and brain damage. One of her seizure triggers is running, an average person may decide to give up running due to the risk. Not Lauren, she refuses to give up!  To date, against all odds, she has completed over (38) 5k runs with her Dad. She lights up a room and inspires everyone she meets. In October of 2021 her mom Colleen released her book, Murphys Don’t Quit, 5 Keys to Unlocking Hope When Life Seems Hopeless. Together they have launched a successful speaking career and have spoken in front of over 15,000 people.