Our Story

People dream about “love at first sight;” We are fortunate to experience and live it everyday. Our marriage was and is centered on faith in God, complete love for each other, and close relationships with family and friends. Those of you acquainted with Laura Laughlin are fully aware of her unique personality and undeniable caring nature. For those that do not know Laura and those that do, our goal is to provide hope for others and allow people to get to know our story. Laura is young, married (a newlywed!), beautiful, smart, unselfish, high-spirited, courageous, and living with a traumatic brain injury.

We both were raised in hard-working middle class households. There is nothing unusual to share about our upbringings. Our families were supportive and loving. Neither of us had ever dealt with a family tragedy on any significant level. Laura attended a private Lutheran school throughout elementary and middle school. She graduated from Marquette high in 1998 as homecoming queen. I went through the public school system and graduated from Francis Howell North in 1996 (Definitely not homecoming king!). Laura and I both have engineering undergrad degrees, chemical and civil, respectively.

To truly enjoy our fairy tale romance, I have to take you back to when we met, the summer of 2001. We had a completely chance meeting at a popular nightspot in downtown St. Louis. Laura was on summer break and I had just graduated and started working full-time. We talked, flirted, and exchanged phone numbers. After a few calls, we finally connected. It was as if we were best friends from that moment on. The conversation was electric and we started dating. To make a long story short, it was the best summer of our lives. We fell head over heels in love and became “boyfriend and girlfriend” by the end of the summer. Unfortunately, it was just in time for Laura to go back to Mizzou for her senior year.

That year in Columbia turned out to be one of the most memorable years of our lives. It was chalked full of basketball games, football games, winery trips, hanging out, and being with Laura and all of her crazy, fun, and beautiful Tri-Delta sisters. We even had an hourly countdown to when I would come visit, because we were so in love. I would call on a Wednesday and say, “only 46 hours till I get to see my princess.” It was corny, but we loved it.

Fast-forwarding through our courtship, we were engaged on our 2-year anniversary. We stayed awake almost all night on our cell phones notifying friends and family that “we were getting married.” Laura and I had a long engagement (14 months), which seemed to take forever. We wanted to be married so bad so that we could live together. Merging our complete lives together was a dream come true.

Laura and I finally tied the knot on August 7th, 2004. We spent our fabulous honeymoon in Jamaica, narrowly missing hurricane Charlie. The following summer we bought the house that we planned on raising our family in. It was a nice 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom ranch house that was perfect for our plans. We had grand ideas on what to do with the house. Laura and I started going like crazy on the projects. To our surprise, on the morning of July 15th, 2005 our lives were completely changed forever.

It started as a routine morning. I kissed Laura goodbye and went off to work. It was Friday morning and we had big plans for the weekend including tickets to see our St. Louis Cardinals and painting the dining room. Unfortunately, those events and many others would be put on hold indefinitely. I received a call on my cell phone at around 7:30AM. With a big smile on my face, I expected it to be Laura (she was the only one to ever call my cell phone that early). When I answered it was the St. John’s Hospital Chaplain. The conversation went something like this: Is this Jeff? Yes. Are you Laura Laughlin’s husband? Yes. Your wife has been in an accident and she is at St. John’s. Is she OK? You need to come down here right away. Can I talk to her, please? No, right now she is getting a CT scan. With that I left work and raced in that direction through rush hour. At that moment, my entire life came into question and I wept uncontrollably for fear of what was to come.

I gathered up enough strength to calm myself and call Laura’s parents. They met me at the hospital and we made our way through the emergency room. We would later find out that Laura was broadsided on the passenger side by a heavy-duty dump truck traveling 60MPH. A staff of doctors and nurses (about 5 in all) pulled the three of us into a private room and closed the door. The look of death was in their eyes and there was a pit in everyone’s stomach. The doctor began to read Laura’s prognosis; words such as, severe brain injury, punctured lung, skull fractures, very critical condition, facial fractures were spoken. I will never be able to truly recollect exactly what was said. During that moment of ultimate shock, your brain functioning and sense of thought are simply gone.

It was an extremely desperate situation. Laura was in an, out an out, fight for survival. We had a few minutes to see Laura and we almost couldn’t recognize her. Laura’s pretty face had swollen incredibly. We wanted to help, but couldn’t. We wanted to turn back time, but couldn’t. We even wanted to question why, but still couldn’t. Laura was a fighter and now God had her in the palm of his hands.

Our lives have undoubtedly been changed forever. At the forefront is Laura’s everyday battle to recover, restore, and relearn the most basic of abilities. In addition, our once simple lives have been complicated by the addition of doctors, nurses, case managers, attorneys, social workers, therapists, and others. We understand the need for these professionals for our situation and admire and respect their services. Friends and family have collectively served to relieve a great deal of our burden through their emotional, physical, and financial support. We know that in due time, there is a wonderful conclusion to all this chaos.

After several surgeries, Laura remains in a coma-like state to this day. She has been improving, but has a long road to travel. Laura is slowly moving through the different stages of coma. (FYI: Read the emails under the UPDATES tab if you want specific detailed information of her progress) We all know that she will be back for many reasons. God has big plans for this one of a kind person. You can put these words in stone: Laura will live to inspire and help others overcome adversity. She will be a beacon of hope for others. Her story will convince others of the reality of miracles when the loving powers of God, family, friends, and the human spirit synergize. Laura has an amazing fighting spirit. She has overachieved and continued to silence all doubters. Is there any wonder why her story is so uplifting? If Laura could speak, she would challenge everyone to find their purpose and live for today. Live unselfishly and lose yourself. Everyone that has ever met Laura is a better person because of it. Let’s collectively show Laura what we can do while she is recovering. She will return to a world full of more love, faith, and hope.

LAURA LAUGHLIN MEDICAL FUND

An account has been set up at Bank of America to allow the countless number of people that have been touched by this situation to make a donation to help this newlywed couple with their medical expenses. To make a donation through this trust fund, all you have to do is go into any Bank of America in the country and state that you want to make a contribution to the LAURA LAUGHLIN MEDICAL FUND.