LOVE YOUR BRAIN
A Family Works to Build Resilience and Community
Adam, David, and Kevin Pearce are brothers now working together after Kevin’s traumatic brain injury
O
n December 31, 2009, Kevin
Pearce was training in Park City,
Utah as a snowboarder bound for
the 2010 Olympics. During one of his half-
pipe runs, he caught an edge and suffered
a tragic, career-ending crash. His older
brother Adam put everything on hold to
become Kevin’s primary caregiver as Kevin
faced the daunting battle of recovery from
a traumatic brain injury. Thanks to Kevin’s
resilience and enormous support from his
family and friends during the last 10 years,
he has regained his life—not as a world-
class snowboarder, but as the public face
for traumatic brain injury (TBI) awareness
and the importance of loving your brain.
66 VERMONT MAGAZINE
Every year, 2.8 million people suffer a TBI
ranging from a mild concussion to severe
trauma. By 2020, the World Health
Organization anticipates that TBI will
become the third leading cause of death
and disability in the world.
The Crash Reel, a brilliant HBO documen-
tary from 2013, chronicles Kevin Pearce’s
ascendancy to the pinnacle of extreme
snowboarding. It also provides an
unflinching portrayal of his torturous
struggle to recover from his near fatal
crash.
“We set out to create awareness with the
movie,” Adam Pearce says. “We wanted to
educate people about the prevalence and
complexity and, most of all, the isola-
tion that comes with TBI.” The brothers’
next step was to establish the LoveYour-
Brain (LYB) Foundation, based in their
hometown of Norwich, Vermont. The
LYB Foundation’s mission is to improve
the quality of life of people affected by
traumatic brain injury through programs
that build community and foster resilience.
LYB celebrated its fifth anniversary in
November 2019.
Story by Maria Buteux Reade