At 5:45 a.m. on Jan. 7, 2004, Tiffany Field and her younger sister were rushing across a busy Route 73 — a four-lane highway —in Berlin, New Jersey, to catch the school bus.

It was dark and the girls were both struck by a SUV. Both suffered serious brain injuries.

Tiffany’s sister spent two weeks in the hospital, before moving into a rehabilitation center. Tiffany was locked in a coma for a month and spent another two months in the hospital once she awoke. While there, she went through daily rehab for speech, occupational and recreational skills.

Once released from the hospital, Tiffany was home-schooled and held back a year. When she returned to her vocational high school the next year, she was placed in special education classes and her curriculum was adjusted to give her less taxing classes.

While Tiffany eventually recovered from the accident, she was never the same. And, because of her brain injury, she has endured a lifetime of judgment from people based on her changed speech patterns and thought processes.

She said the judging started soon after the accident, when she returned to her vocational high school. She was placed in special education and her curriculum was adjusted to give her less taxing classes.

Tiffany worked to convince her teachers that, while her brain had been injured, her thinking was clear. Her changed speech patterns made it sound as if she were intellectually disabled, but she insisted she was not and eventually worked her way back to regular classes and her former trade: legal assistance.

She wasn’t able to continue playing sports and participate in as many recreational activities as she did before the accident because of physical limitations, but adjusted to her new “normal.”

While in high school, she worked at a bus company as an aide for special needs children. Then, her family moved to Maine.

She continued high school here, while also volunteering and continuing with rehabilitative therapy. “I was pretty busy,” she said, “and I graduated high school in credit completion.”

Several weeks ago, Tiffany contacted the Sun Journal to share her story, in her own words:

*     *     *

Immediately after graduating high school a year late due to my accident, I continued community college as a liberal studies major. I started working work-study while continuing my studies and dealing with my accommodations.

The diversity where I was located was pretty in-depth, my speech impediment was not noticed much. When I graduated (high school) with my associates and started to attend the University of Southern Maine, I still used accommodations, only to utilize further information.

I started to work off campus and my only mode of transportation really was walking due to the time of my classes (conflicting) with public transportation times and lack of me driving due to the in-depth training needed — or told I needed. I did pay for driver’s ed and a few extra classes driving on my own.

I feel with more practice I would be successful, despite some family members refusal of the whole process. I changed my job and moved from student housing to my own apartment. I worked at my job and continued at the university.

Getting a new job in a field of study however was very difficult. I realized the bias and lack of knowledge at first perception. I have learned that people need to talk to me at length before realizing my processing is not hampered, my speech is just slower. It takes me time to connect words to my mouth.

My jobs consisted of pretty physical jobs that hampered my physical state due to my past injuries. As I began to be around my town I had resided in for the last nine years, townspeople who did not regularly see me judged me more and more by perception.

I learn new things about me every day. According to other perceptions, I am under the influence, or it is thought I am very impaired. Most people are amazed to hear I have lived on my own and maintained my life pretty successfully. I admit my support has been very helpful, but it wouldn’t have got that way without asking and taking the proper steps to overcome.

I feel people think I am easy to take advantage of and I am not very perceptive. This rational needs to be further eradicated due to uneducated perception.

I have been judged numerous times for having a brain injury and the vast unrealistic arguments pertaining to that. More or less stereotyping me before I am known.

My mindset is very different and taking things into consideration that compare to my capabilities since the devastating accident is not everyone’s reality.

I am not interested in their perceptions as well as feel the need to educate those who can’t be educated unless willing to take in a whole new perspective.

I can write more, and pretty much every day is a new reality. I have been told I need to stop justifying or told to stop using (my injury) as an excuse or crutch. The reality of which is simply it is something I live with daily, and had to overcome.

*     *     *

Tiffany had a child in November, but has not been permitted custody because of her traumatic brain injury and the fear from public and health officials she would not be able to care for the baby. She is fighting that decision.

“I am a junior in college to get my bachelor’s. I have continuously worked and gone to school and deserve to be with and grow with my child, even with a brain injury. Because of some people’s reality and opinions, I am being punished and missing out.

“I have been living on my own, working, and going to college the past nine years. Now, I can’t parent based on other people’s opinions. I have not even been given the opportunity to parent, based on stereotype.”

Tiffany Field of Lewiston is a student at the University of Southern Maine. She intends to graduate in 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in video production and communication and new media.