Locked in

Judy Mozersky was 19 when she suffered a totally incapacitating stroke. This is a story of incredible personal endurance and courage.

Judy Mozersky was a young, beautiful and vivacious university student, when she suffered a totally incapacitating stroke at the age of nineteen. Unable to move or speak, but with the thinking part of her brain unaffected, Judy was locked in a body she could no longer control. Yet she defied the predictions of doctors who thought she would never be able to breathe on her own or leave a hospital setting of total dependency. Five years after her stroke, she lives in her own apartment in Ottawa, is learning to operate a computer, and takes a lively interest in the world around her.

Judy’s ordeal serves to remind us of life’s unpredictability and the power and tenacity of human will. She taught us all a great deal.

Dr. P.D. Vaillancourt, attending neurologist. (School of Medicine, State University of New york at Stony Brook, New York.)