--- title: "Ten Weeks to Home, Four Years to 85%: The Real Timeline of Brain Injury Recovery" description: "A traumatic brain injury recovery timeline from one Bucks County survivor: home in ten weeks, back in the gym within a year, 85% recovered after four." image: https://triumphinrecovery.com/hubfs/blog/traumatic-brain-injury-recovery-timeline.jpg --- [Skip to content](https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/traumatic-brain-injury-recovery-timeline#main-content) ![Black and White Circle Global Tech Logo (2)](https://triumphinrecovery.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Black%20and%20White%20Circle%20Global%20Tech%20Logo%20(2).png?width=150&height=150&name=Black%20and%20White%20Circle%20Global%20Tech%20Logo%20(2).png) - [About](https://triumphinrecovery.com/our-story) - [Blog](https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog) - [Get Involved](https://triumphinrecovery.com/#contact-us) Open main navigation Close main navigation - [About](https://triumphinrecovery.com/our-story) - [Blog](https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog) - [Get Involved](https://triumphinrecovery.com/#contact-us) - [Donate](https://triumph-in-recovery.givecloud.co/fundraising/forms/G2EXWJD6) [Donate](https://triumph-in-recovery.givecloud.co/fundraising/forms/G2EXWJD6) Oct 29, 2026, 4:33:41 PM # Ten Weeks to Home, Four Years to 85%: The Real Timeline of Brain Injury Recovery [Triumph In Recovery](https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/author/triumph-in-recovery) Share: [facebook-f icon](http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/traumatic-brain-injury-recovery-timeline) [linkedin-in icon](http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/traumatic-brain-injury-recovery-timeline) [Twitter icon](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/traumatic-brain-injury-recovery-timeline) [pinterest-p icon](http://pinterest.com/pin/create/link/?url=https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/traumatic-brain-injury-recovery-timeline) [envelope icon](mailto:?body=https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/traumatic-brain-injury-recovery-timeline) ![Tim Chiarolanza in a Triumph In Recovery T-shirt, smiling beside a woman in a school hallway](https://triumphinrecovery.com/hubfs/blog/traumatic-brain-injury-recovery-timeline-geisinger.jpg) Image courtesy of [Geisinger](https://www.geisinger.org/about-us/patient-stories/emergency/timothy-chiarolanza) Tim Chiarolanza went home on January 28, 2022, ten weeks after a car hit him on November 16, 2021, near the Lycoming College campus in Williamsport. Four years after the accident, he describes himself as about 85% recovered. The other 15% is still with him every day. ![Hospital bed and monitors during Tim Chiarolanza recovery](https://triumphinrecovery.com/hubfs/Gallery%20Photos/Hospital.jpg) *Tim Chiarolanza in the hospital after his November 2021 accident.* That distance between leaving the hospital and being recovered is where most of life after a serious brain injury takes place. For Tim, it has been measured in years. ## Three types of injury, three different clocks The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sorts traumatic brain injuries into three types: mild TBI or concussion, moderate TBI and severe TBI. A person with a mild TBI may have short-term symptoms and feel better within a couple of weeks or months, and most can recover safely at home after a medical check-up. A moderate or severe TBI can cause effects that last for years or for the rest of a person's life, and many of those patients need ongoing rehabilitation. Those effects can include problems with thinking and memory, movement, sensation such as vision or hearing, and emotional functioning, and they reach well beyond the patient to families and communities. ## The first weeks Tim's injuries included a ruptured aorta, a separated pelvis, a collapsed left lung and multiple broken bones. A paramedic at the scene performed a cricothyrotomy, an emergency airway procedure he had never done before. A Guthrie Air helicopter flew Tim from UPMC Williamsport Hospital to Geisinger Medical Center in Danville for specialized care. Three days after the accident, his brain began to bleed and swell, revealing a traumatic brain injury, and he spent the next three and a half weeks in a coma in Geisinger's intensive care unit. Doctors told his family he had a 1% chance of survival. In all, he spent between three and a half and four weeks in the hospital, and it was ten weeks after the accident before he returned home. When he woke, he had to relearn how to walk, talk and handle simple daily tasks. "I was essentially a newborn at 32," Tim says. ## The first year Lycoming had named Tim its head strength and conditioning coach in September 2021, about two months before the accident. He brought that same mindset to rehabilitation, treating each physical therapy session the way an athlete prepares for the most important game of his life. Within a year of the accident, he was back in the gym. ![Tim Chiarolanza standing in a Lycoming Warriors shirt](https://triumphinrecovery.com/hubfs/Article%20Image%20Tim.png) *Tim Chiarolanza, co-founder and President of Triumph In Recovery.* ## The years that follow To a stranger, Tim looks fully recovered. He is not. His balance and eyesight remain poor, and he tends to repeat himself. He describes his brain injury as invisible, and as something he is aware of around the clock. Melissa Hlavaty, an adult trauma program case manager at Geisinger who worked with Tim, has said that seeing him build a full life while adapting to long-term deficits is exactly what his care team hopes for. She describes his message to other survivors as a simple one: where a person is now is not where they will be tomorrow, and the way forward is small steps. Tim built a daily routine around that idea, which he calls the Today Effect. Each day starts with a purpose word that defines what the day is for and one action, driven by that purpose, to make it great, followed by a deliberate effort to stay present and to connect with one person. ## A local place to start Tim founded Triumph In Recovery in Doylestown to support survivors of traumatic brain injury, trauma and stroke, along with their families, through education, rehabilitation information and community outreach. If you or someone you love is somewhere in the long middle of recovery, reach the team at triumphinrecovery@gmail.com, or support the work at [triumphinrecovery.com](https://triumphinrecovery.com). ## Keep reading - [Bucks County Has More Brain Injury Help Than Most Families Ever Find](https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/brain-injury-support-bucks-county) - [After a Brain Injury, the Family Joins the Care Team](https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/how-to-help-family-member-traumatic-brain-injury) - [Paying for a Recovery That Lasts Years: Where Pennsylvania Families Find the Money](https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/financial-help-after-serious-accident-pennsylvania) - [Given a 1% Chance to Live, a Former Lycoming Coach Built a Daily Practice Around Today](https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/the-today-effect) ## Sources 1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Facts About TBI," updated August 4, 2025. [https://www.cdc.gov/traumatic-brain-injury/data-research/facts-stats/index.html](https://www.cdc.gov/traumatic-brain-injury/data-research/facts-stats/index.html) 2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Traumatic Brain Injury in the United States: Emergency Department Visits, Hospitalizations, and Deaths," via BrainLine. [https://www.brainline.org/node/18829](https://www.brainline.org/node/18829) 3. Geisinger, "The 'Today Effect': How surviving trauma gave one coach new purpose." [https://www.geisinger.org/about-us/patient-stories/emergency/timothy-chiarolanza](https://www.geisinger.org/about-us/patient-stories/emergency/timothy-chiarolanza) ## Related posts [![Tim Chiarolanza standing with a woman beside memorial plaques at a Lycoming College event](https://triumphinrecovery.com/hs-fs/hubfs/blog/how-to-help-family-member-traumatic-brain-injury.jpg?height=200&name=how-to-help-family-member-traumatic-brain-injury.jpg)](https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/how-to-help-family-member-traumatic-brain-injury) ## [After a Brain Injury, the Family Joins the Care Team](https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/how-to-help-family-member-traumatic-brain-injury) [Triumph In Recovery](https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/author/triumph-in-recovery) Oct 29, 2026, 4:33:38 PM A neurologist at Geisinger Medical Center gave Tim Chiarolanza's wife and father the prognosis in... [Read more](https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/how-to-help-family-member-traumatic-brain-injury) [![Open rear cabin of a medical helicopter on its landing pad](https://triumphinrecovery.com/hs-fs/hubfs/blog/the-today-effect.jpg?height=200&name=the-today-effect.jpg)](https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/the-today-effect) ## [Given a 1% Chance to Live, a Former Lycoming Coach Built a Daily Practice Around Today](https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/the-today-effect) [Triumph In Recovery](https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/author/triumph-in-recovery) Oct 29, 2026, 4:33:27 PM On September 21, 2021, Lycoming College named Tim Chiarolanza its head strength and conditioning... [Read more](https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/the-today-effect) [![Tim Chiarolanza smiling as he hugs a supporter](https://triumphinrecovery.com/hs-fs/hubfs/blog/financial-help-after-serious-accident-pennsylvania.jpg?height=200&name=financial-help-after-serious-accident-pennsylvania.jpg)](https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/financial-help-after-serious-accident-pennsylvania) ## [Paying for a Recovery That Lasts Years: Where Pennsylvania Families Find the Money](https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/financial-help-after-serious-accident-pennsylvania) [Triumph In Recovery](https://triumphinrecovery.com/blog/author/triumph-in-recovery) Oct 29, 2026, 4:33:36 PM In November 2021, a Guthrie Air helicopter carried Tim Chiarolanza from UPMC Williamsport Hospital... 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