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This clip shows a neurosurgeon speaking about Alicia Liley, and the part that modern medicine played in her recovery. In separate sequences Alicia, her father and her mother describe how they believe the family’s collective faith helped Alicia pull through, even after the doctors warned that her chances of survival were slim. The clip includes a re-enactment of the family gathered around Alicia’s hospital bed and ends with still photographs of a recovering Alicia.

Educational value points

• In 1988 Alicia Liley, an 18-year-old drama student had a near-fatal car accident that left her in a coma for 8 weeks. Doctors told her family it was unlikely that she would ever recover from a vegetative state, but after coming out of the coma and 10 months of rehabilitation, Alicia left hospital able to walk, talk and write, and soon after acquired her driver’s licence.

• This experience has had an effect on Alicia’s sense of identity. She believes that her recovery indicates that 'there is a purpose for my life’ and in 1994 she founded 'Soul Theatre’ in Melbourne, a company designed to 'break down prejudices against the misunderstood, disadvantaged and disenfranchised’. Alicia also campaigns to raise awareness within the community of Acquired Brain Injury (ABI), which was the reason she participated in this documentary.

• The clip shows a re-enactment of the family gathered around Alicia’s bed at a critical time in her recovery. Alicia and her parents believe the family’s collective faith aided her recovery, with Alicia crediting 'everyone’s power and prayer and, I believe, God’. Her father recalls that the family felt it was their vigil that was responsible for the improvement in her condition, with both Alicia and her father identifying the will to recover as an expression of God, a factor that has influenced Alicia’s commitment to give her life purpose.

• Both science and faith may have played a part in Alicia’s recovery. The film juxtaposes the family’s bedside vigil with the neurosurgeon’s assertion that modern medicine helped keep Alicia alive (he refers to her as Jane). For Alicia’s mother the neurosurgeon’s superstitious practice of knocking on wood allowed her to continue to hope even when the doctors were pessimistic about her daughter’s survival.

• Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) is an injury to the brain that can be caused by a number of factors including trauma, substance abuse and stroke. The long-term consequences of ABI can include concentration problems, memory loss, personality and behaviour disorders, and speech and language impairment. This can result in loss of employment, lack of social opportunities, isolation, withdrawal and impaired family relations. ABI is regarded as a disability.

• The clip shows Alicia seven years after her recovery. While her determination to live an active and full life has seen her resume a theatrical career, the accident left Alicia deaf in one ear, with a speech impediment and a tremor in her left hand. She experiences some memory loss and suffers chronic pain from spinal injuries. In the early stages of her recovery Alicia battled depression and twice attempted suicide.

This clip starts approximately 13 minutes into the documentary.

A neurosurgeon speaks over a montage of hospital scenes and X-rays.
Neurosurgeon Without modern medical care, she most certainly could still have died because of the effect that the brain injury has on really all other bodily functions. In Jane’s case, she had a clearly severe head injury and, eh, her survival was by no means guaranteed, despite our best efforts.

We see Alicia’s father wearing an Akubra-style hat, inside a hayshed.
Father One of the medicos at Melbourne took Mel and I aside after – I forget, must have been three or four days – and said that they were doing everything that they possibly could, and it looked as if, it was not going to be enough. In other words, the bruising was coming out, the b… cranium was not going to be sufficient space for the bruising to still keep growing, and it would be, eh, curtains.

Alicia’s mother sits in a sunny living room.
Mother The neurosurgeon who saw us every day used to knock on wood, and I suppose I’ve got a bit of gypsy in me, and I thought if it was good enough for a man of his skills to knock on wood, well, it’s good enough for me to hope.

Father in hayshed, followed by a re-enactment of the family gathered around Alicia’s bedside. She’s in a vegetative state. Monitors beep.
Father I decided then and there it was time we’d have to take the matter into our own hands or someone else’s hands or whatever. The monitor was registering 38 or 42 or something or other. So I said, ‘Well, let’s all work on getting that back.’ And James said, ‘So we’re all thinking together, let’s think of a number. Get her back to 38.’ So we had our session and our various ways, just quietly, and when it was finished, it had reversed. The number was coming down instead of going up. And I – I’m goose-pimply all over, just the thought of it. Um… um… everyone – I did that. Everyone went – aah! I’m responsible for that. And I put a notice up amongst the flowers, 'God is love’. And there was nothing truer.

Alicia is interviewed over a montage of the family throwing a party at her hospital bed while she is recovering.
Girl Everyone’s power, and prayer, and I believe God, made that monitor lessen. I know there’s a purpose for my life, for my existence.