On Nov. 7, 2010, a Texas high school student was on his way to his high school's choir concert, which was being held as part of the school's 125th anniversary celebration. He never made it there. While driving to the concert, he reportedly failed to stop at a stop sign and collided with a pickup truck.

The student suffered massive injuries in the car accident, including several broken ribs, a broken pelvis, and a severe head injury. In the days and weeks following his accident, his doctors and family were unsure if he would survive, let alone recover from his injuries. He was unconscious for several days, and didn't speak his first word until almost two months after the crash.

It was the brain injury that proved the largest obstacle to recovery. The student had little to no short-term memory, and he had to relearn to walk, talk and write. But he worked hard at his recovery and eventually returned to school. He will graduate this spring in the top 10 percent of his class.

About 1.7 million adults and children suffer a traumatic brain injury every year in the U.S., and more than 3 million live with some sort of lifelong disability as a result of a brain injury.

While advances in medicine have resulted in a continuing increase in the number of people who are able to survive a traumatic brain injury, recovering from one is almost always a long process, says Galveston neurologist Dr. Brent Masel. "It's so much more complex than, say, a broken bone. Everyone knows what happens when you break a bone. You put it in a cast and it gets better," he told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "It's hard to tell what will happen with a brain injury."

Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "High school student recovers after serious accident," Eva-Marie Ayala, Dec. 4, 2011