For National Brain Injury Awareness Week, we are proud to share a new short film featuring National Assistance Card Ambassador Lizz Hills.
Lizz is a nature-based counsellor, educator, author and business owner living on Migunberri Country in Queensland’s Scenic Rim.
The film follows Lizz’s journey after brain injury and explores how she has found purpose, meaning and connection while adapting to significant changes in her life.
Meet Lizz
Lizz acquired a brain injury at the age of 21 after a devastating train accident during her first solo overseas trip to Thailand.
Before the accident, she was a rock-climbing instructor and divemaster, studied at university and loved solo adventures.
After waking in a Brisbane hospital, Lizz was told she may never return to university, work or have children.
One year later, while still rebuilding her life, she returned to Thailand for Christmas and survived the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.
Today, more than 20 years after her brain injury, Lizz is a mother, author, counsellor, business owner and postgraduate student.
But the film is not simply a story about overcoming adversity.
It asks audiences to look beyond visible achievements and recognise the planning, adaptation, ongoing effort and support that can sit behind everyday life with an invisible disability.
“I can look fine, but be totally maxed out,” Lizz says in the film.
“People see the surface. They don’t see what it costs to hold it.”
The National Assistance Card as a "safety net"
Lizz discovered the National Assistance Card in 2023, as she was preparing to walk across Australia.
Carrying her Card, Lizz spent 153 days trekking more than 6,300 kilometres through rainforests, deserts, cities and coastal landscapes. Along the way, she visited schools to deliver Earth science education programs.
For Lizz, the National Assistance Card provided a “safety net”. It gave her a way to communicate that she may need understanding or assistance without having to repeatedly explain her brain injury.
Lizz was later named a 2024 Scenic Rim Citizen of the Year and now operates Trek2Reconnect, her private eco-counselling practice.
In 2025, she became a National Assistance Card Ambassador and has since helped raise awareness of the Card and the difference greater understanding can make for people with brain injury.
In the lead-up to this year’s National Brain Injury Awareness Week, we visited Lizz and her family at their home in the Scenic Rim to hear more about her life and what living well with brain injury means to her.
Living well can look different
Lizz’s story reminds us that living well after brain injury does not necessarily mean returning to the life you had before. It can mean discovering new possibilities, reconnecting with what matters, and building a meaningful life on your own terms.
There is no single pathway through life after brain injury.
Every person’s experience is different, and every family member, friend and supporter travels their own path alongside them. Yet across these different experiences is a shared community shaped by understanding, connection, determination and hope.
This is at the heart of the theme for National Brain Injury Awareness Week 2026: “Brain injury: many pathways, one community.”
By sharing our stories, we strengthen that community. Our pathways may be different, but the stories and support we share can help ensure that no one has to navigate life after brain injury alone.
With thanks
We are incredibly grateful to Lizz and her family for generously sharing their time and experiences.
We also thank Cody from Shadestone Films for bringing Lizz’s story to the screen so beautifully, with such care and thought.
We hope the film encourages people to look beyond what they can see and reflect on one simple question:
What does living well mean to you?
