Brain injury is something that 'happens in a second'
In 2011, Karyn McMorrow was just like any other 22-year-old graduate. After years of studying in Galway, she decided to see a bit of the world. She moved to Thailand for six months to teach English in a secondary school there.
After six months, she liked it so much that she decided to stay on for another term, and so she got a job teaching in a big primary school with lots of students and staff.
Her employers put her up in an apartment and she liked the town where she was living. It was small and quiet and about an hour fromBangkok.
Her apartment was on the second floor of the building and, one morning, November 1 2011, she went out onto her balcony.
"I don't remember it happening at all. There was no railings, and it was a two-storey drop. I can't remember the day before. I can't remember anything really.
"I can remember being in school and nights out with my friends, but there's nothing clear about what happened before."
Karyn had fallen from the balcony and sustained a brain injury.
"I had two bleeds on my brain. My short-term memory was gone. I had a foot drop on my left leg initially and was walking funny, but the rest was to do with my brain.
"There wasn't a mark on me. After I was in hospital for a month, my two brothers came over. I don't even remember any of that. My brothers took pictures of me but I don't remember."
Karyn came home to Ireland and moved back in with her family in her hometown in Cavan.
People with a brain injury may look fine but can experience many problems that mean they are not able to resume their lives as they were before. That be very difficult to come to terms with. As a young woman, this loss of independence was especially tough.
"I moved out of home when I was 17, went to college, stayed in Galway, I was totally independent and then had to come back and move back into the house and it felt like everyone was keeping an eye on me.
"It took me a good year to come to terms with the fact that I wasn't the same person. Not that I wasn't actually the same person, but I would have been very moody and stuff.
"I could talk to someone in the morning and then I'd see them again in the evening and I wouldn't remember having spoken to them that morning.
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/health/brain-injury-is-something-that-happens-in-a-second-30074831.html
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