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Woman's memory reset every two hours after traumatic accident
Featured Image Credit: Inside Edition

Woman's memory reset every two hours after traumatic accident

Riley woke up every day thinking it was 11 June 2019.

A college student suffered from severe memory loss that involved her brain essentially resetting itself every two hours after she suffered a traumatic concussion.

Riley Horner had been waking up every morning since 11 June 2019, thinking it was still 11 June 2019.

On that date, the teen was rushed to hospital after attending a dance in Springfield, Illinois, where a boy who was crowd surfing fell and landed on top of her.

After running a few tests, everything seemed fine to doctors, so Riley was sent home - only she wasn't fine at all.

Within just a few hours of leaving the hospital, Riley had a series of 30 to 45 seizures, according to her mom Sarah.

The next morning, the then-16-year-old woke up and it was as if that traumatic events of the day before had never happened. As far as she knew, it was 11 June, and she was going to go to a dance that evening.

In the days that followed, her memory kept resetting to that date every two hours.

When she would realise that's not the date, she would go to her phone and find countless updates on her Notes app to fill her in on everything that's happened since the accident.

Riley woke up every morning since 11 June 2019 thinking it's 11 June 2019.
GoFundMe

"I have notes on my phone, when I got up this morning there’s like thousands of notes," she told Fox News in an interview.

After searching and searching for a doctor who could help with Riley's medical anomaly, her family eventually found a team in Utah who could diagnose her with a series of tests.

It turned out that Riley had suffered a severe concussion that other assessments had missed, and had a TBI (traumatic brain injury).

TBI has affected Riley's ability to focus, prioritise, focus and store information.

When Riley finally got that diagnosis from post-concussion specialists Cognitive FX, they were able to put together a plan to help her improve her memory.

Riley suffered from a traumatic brain injury.
Facebook/ Help Riley Remember

Within just one week of treatment, Riley started making her first new memories - though she still hasn't been able to recall anything that happened between 11 June 2019 and December 2019.

Before the accident, when she was a junior in high school, Riley was a straight-A student, and dreamed of becoming a doctor. But all hope seemed lost when Riley started losing her memories, hardly able to retain any information from her classes.

"If she goes to college, she's not going to know where her dorm room is. She's not going to know where her classes are," Riley's mom Sarah worried back in 2019.

But there have been some very positive developments since then.

Thanks to the treatment at Cognitive FX, Riley was able to retain enough memories to get her through nursing school.

In an update posted by her mother just last month, she revealed: "She’s had some very hard semesters, but she made it.

"Actually when I wrote this, I was in the car headed to her WHITE COAT ceremony!!! She’s made it through her class work in nursing and is now on the clinical side of things."

Riley is still on medicine for her seizures, and will probably never be her old self again, but she and her family are trying to focus on the little wins - like finishing her first semester with a 4.0.

Despite her memory loss issues, Riley is making her way through nursing school.
Facebook/Help Riley Remember

"It’s hard to see her sometimes have to work so much harder than others," her mom wrote in the latest update to the 'Help Riley Remember' Facebook page.

"Riley still suffers from memory loss, not as bad as every two hours, but things just don’t stick all the time.

"And unfortunately there’s no rhyme or reason what sticks and what doesn’t. This bothers her a lot. It’s hard in normal conversations and it’s very hard with nursing school."

The seizures are still a problem, too, but since all her college friends are also nursing majors, they've been a great help, and have been able to put Riley's parents' minds at ease, at least a little.

"We hear all the time how good she looks, how good she’s doing, and how she looks like she’s thriving," wrote Sarah.

"That’s because TBIs are an invisible disease. You can’t see her struggles most of the time, but I do."

Riley's family are still searching for a treatment that will work for Riley, and though it's been costly, Sarah says it's been 'worth every penny' if it means helping her daughter get her life back.

You can donate to Riley's treatment here.

Topics: Health, Science, Weird