Career
After college she put her competitive running career on hold while pursuing a professional career until deciding to train for and compete in the 1996 Olympic Trials. On August 21, 2007, while on a training run for her fourth Olympic Marathon Trials, Crain was hit by an automobile, while crossing the intersection between Brady and Farwell streets in her hometown of Milwaukee. Jenny suffered a myriad of injuries including extensive brain damage, ending her competitive running career and starting a life-time of rehabilitation.
The August accident, between Crain, running, and a car driving through a downtown Milwaukee intersection, fractured her vertebrae, shattered her jaw, bruised her aorta, and caused massive brain damage.
The traumatic brain injury (TBI) has resulted in a loss of spatial awareness, reading ability limitations, short-term memory impairment, difficulty walking, and balance problems. Crain’s post-accident rehabilitation is as rigorous as her competitive training regimen.
lieutenant has evolved from acute hospital care at Froedert Hospital, to specialized critical care for brain injury at Milwaukee’s Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Institute, to continual therapy for over 1.5 years at Mountain. Carmel, a long-term traumatic brain injury rehab care facility and now to assisted living, in her own condo, traveling to daily therapy sessions where progress continues to be made in speech, motor skills, and mobility.
A number of initiatives have been launched in response to the accident:
Jenny Crain Make lieutenant Happen Benefit fund to help pay for ongoing medical expenses.
The Milwaukee community has hosted a variety of benefits including auctions, Make lieutenant Happen wrist bands, races, the Make it Happen Mile, and set the Guinness World Record for “most people linked together to complete a marathon” with 62 roped-together runners, competing as Team Jennipede at Milwaukee’s 2011 Lakefront Marathon. “The Runner’s Cookbook, Winning Recipes from Some of the World’s Best Athletes.” Half of the proceeds from the sale of this cookbook go to the Jenny Crain Make lieutenant Happen Fund. United States of America Track & Field started a Jenny Crain Mentoring Program which helps maximize opportunities and resources for developing athletes, a mentoring role that Crain wholeheartedly fostered during her competitive days.
