The crash and a wedding 

Sarah Herbert was just driving home, one week after she had just gotten engaged to her now husband, when she had a near fatal car crash. 

“I sustained a severe traumatic brain injury in a car accident in 2002. I was not expected to survive, and was expected to be severely brain damaged if I did.” 

“I spent 16 days in ICU and in the Westmead Hospital Brain Injury Unit for 2 and half months.” 

“Not only did I survive, I thrived. I was able to get married six months after the accident, having only gotten engaged the week before. I managed to get rid of my walking stick two weeks before the wedding and walk down the aisle (with help from my dad!).” 

Family and friends  

After such a significant crash Sarah believes the incredible support from her family and Church community is what helped her get back to where she is today. 

“I had wonderful hospital care in the acute injury phase and a lot of love and support from family, friends and work colleagues post injury.” 

“I have a real appreciation for my family and my church community that was praying for me. I had a great employer, they helped me back to work, because of their support I was able to go back full time.” 

“We were blessed to have a beautiful baby daughter in 2013. I returned to work and struggled to cope with tiredness, new routines and new responsibilities. This is the same as any new parent, but I think the brain injury brought extra challenges with it, especially tiredness and memory issues. But I found new ways to cope with the help of my family.” 

Learning New Things

Prior to her brain injury Sarah had worked as a research and development chemist, but her urge to learn something new had captured her attention – law. 

“They say after a brain injury, and particularly one like mine, you’ll struggle to learn new things” 

“Well, I wanted to learn something new, I wanted to learn law, something completely opposite to engineering – I needed to prove to myself that I was still capable. How do I go out there and learn something completely different?” 

 “I needed to prove to myself that I could study something completely new so I started a Masters in Intellectual Property Law part time in 2006 while continuing full time work. I became a trainee patent attorney at an IP law firm, finished my Masters in 2009 and registered as a patent and trade marks attorney in February 2010. From 2010, I worked as an IP attorney at attorney, Associate and Senior Associate levels.” 

Looking to the future 

“I recently became the Head of Intellectual Property at a start-up company which is very exciting and challenging. Our precious girl is now 11 and doing well, and we’ve been married for 21 years. I’ve only been able to make it this far with the love and support of my family, my friends and my church community.”