Less than a month before their 5th wedding anniversary, Laura Browning received a nightmarish phone call.
Her husband, 35-year-old Navy SEAL Jon Browning, had been in a car accident and was unresponsive. He’d suffered a severe brain bleed and was in a coma with a slim chance of survival and no clear path forward, “I went into shock mode, thinking, ‘Tomorrow he is going to wake up and be fine and walk again,’ ” Laura said.
Days turned into weeks as Jon slowly regained consciousness. After 17 days in the hospital, the combat medic instructor squeezed Laura’s hand… but Jon was not declared fully conscious until nearly a month later.
By early April, Jon had finally stabilized and was showing daily signs of improvement. He began breathing on his own, eating without a feeding tube and relearning basic tasks as his brain recovered from the trauma… but he still wasn’t himself.
“I don’t have my husband to talk to. Sometimes, when I leave the hospital at the end of the day, I think, ‘I just miss my husband.’ Laura said.
Laura left their home in North Carolina and moved to a hotel near Jon’s rehab facility in Virginia. She’s spent 9 to 10 hours every single day with her husband since.
Just when Laura began to lose hope her husband would ever be the same, he did something the old Jon would have done. While Laura was helping him walk through the exercise, he leaned over and kissed her on the neck.
“We hadn’t been able to stand and hold each other since before the accident, but as soon as we got him up, he started kissing my neck,” she says of the incident she caught on film. “It gave me the chills – him kissing me back, you don’t realize how much that means until it’s almost taken away from you.”
The way forward and Jon’s prognosis is still very uncertain, but Laura continues to cling to her faith – confident that Jon will find a way to break through and thrive once again.
Jon’s honorable discharge from the military has already begun. Laura’s sister set up a Go-Fund-Me account for Jon and Laura to cover future medical costs once Jon’s benefits run out, and it’s already raised over $76,000 of it’s $100,000 goal.
Share in honor of Laura, Jon and servicemen and women everywhere on the road to recovery. We’re rooting for you Jon!
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