New Therapy Dog Aids Man’s Mission To Help Others Heal From Traumatic Brain Injuries

A Green Country man who recovered from a traumatic brain injury is now helping others. He helped start the Brain Injury Recovery Foundation and they just got their first therapy dog.

"We have been so excited to get her here. Now she is here,” said Kim Hann, founding member of the Brain Injury Recovery Foundation. “She is such a joy and we are so thankful that we have her. She is going to do so much to help so many people that it is worth all the bites and crying and peeing everywhere."

Pink is an 11-week-old Golden Doodle. It will take about a year to get her fully certified and then she will be ready to serve.

Chris Liberman and Kim Hann started the Brain Injury Recovery Foundation to help support people who have suffered traumatic brain injuries, strokes or spinal cord injuries. They also support their families. 

“They become a part of our family, we talk to them, we check on them. Right now we have a family who is trying to make their home ADA accessible just so they can give their daughter a shower. It is over 4,000 dollars that we are trying to raise for them right now on Facebook,” said Hann. 

The Foundation's purpose is to get people to the resources that helped Liberman recover after he fell from a ladder in 2016 and became a TBI patient himself. 

“The fact that she is going to be a therapy dog, means everything to me. Our type of therapy is really different, trying to get the brain working again and things like that and she is going to be great at that,” said Liberman. 

Pink will start training soon so that she will be able to work people at the rehab center the foundation is planning. She'll also visit people as they recover at home. 

"People are desperate for these services and I am desperate to help them because it is why I am here. Like I always say, I have got to give God a good ROI,” said Chris. 

To learn more about the Brain Injury Recovery Foundation, visit the website here.