Lauren Knox was 15 years old when a car accident changed her life. She was riding with a friend down a large hill near her Northeastside home when the car ran off the road on an s-curve and rammed a fence.

The car continued moving, and 35 feet of fence post came crashing into the passenger side, where Lauren was sitting. It crushed the side of her skull, jaw and one cheek, and she was near death when the ambulance arrived.

Lauren, who was hospitalized for four weeks and received day therapy for another four weeks, is fully healed. Now a freshman at Indiana University, she describes her therapy and recovery.

"I had always envisioned that you go to a hospital and they make everyone sleep all day. But I was up every morning at 8 o'clock, going to therapies until 3. And it's physical, speech, occupational and recreational, and at first I hated it.

"I eventually learned that it was the best thing. I was making progress really, really fast. I wanted to get better because I just wanted to be a normal teen-ager again.

"The hardest part was knowing I wasn't a normal teen-ager. I wasn't driving around with my friends in cars. I wasn't going to movies. I wasn't going to parties. And I wasn't normal. Back then, my cheek was huge.

"The hardest part was just not being normal and not knowing what was the matter with my brain -- I didn't know if I would fall asleep that night and wake up the next morning. I didn't know what the doctors would say to me tomorrow.

"I was only 15, and I knew I had a full life ahead of me. I wanted to go to college. I wanted to graduate from high school. I wanted to be a normal teen-ager, who that summer was gonna get her license. I wanted to show everyone that I could do it, that I wasn't the skinny little girl that they thought I was. I was strong and I could get through any obstacle.

"I'm a very goal-oriented person, and there is nothing that anyone can say or do that won't make me get those goals accomplished.

"I think people think that when you have a brain injury, you're kind of like -- I hate this word -- retarded. And that's what really makes me mad, because the most intelligent, nicest people can have a brain injury.

"When I got out of the hospital, I'd only had one surgery, and I was totally ugly. My cheek was like it had a tennis ball in it. My eye was like (so) swelled -- I couldn't open my mouth to put a fork in it.

"I just remember going to buy new tennis shoes with my dad, and I didn't want to go. And like everyone there was looking at me and making faces.

"(The accident) made me realize you need to live every day like it's gonna be your last day. I learned how important family is, and I learned who my true friends are, the ones who would come and call every day.

"I think, overall, there have been a lot of negatives that have come out of it, but I think the positives definitely outweigh the negatives.

"It's made me understand that I am totally passionate about being a nurse and helping others. I love to go to Methodist and visit my floor and just talk to the moms and dads of the patients and the patients, and just kind of give them a little bit of hope.

"I don't think having a brain or a head injury has put a damper on my life. I think it's enriched it."

REPORTERS: Gabrielle Bibeau, 12; Steven Chase, 12; and Kimberly Heron, 12.