Marion Athlete’s ‘Surreal’ Recovery After Crash Yields More Good News

Hannah Strom continues to recover from the devastating accident that took the life of her friend and teammate and left her with life-threatening injuries in January 2020.

The student from Marion was training in Florida when the College of the Holy Cross rowing van in which she was a passenger was involved in the deadly crash, killing 20-year-old Grace Rhett and injuring Strom and a number of her other teammates.

More than four years later, Strom has earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from Holy Cross. Remarkably, that only came two years later than was initially planned before the accident. Strom just learned this week that she has been accepted into the Quincy College physical therapist assistant program. She plans to start the two-year program in the fall.

"This is honestly surreal that this is happening," she said. "I never thought I'd make it or get here. If you told me when I was in rehab that this would be my life now, when the accident wasn't even five years ago, there's no shot that I would have believed it," Strom said.

Strom said she loves the fight and it is so important to keep going even when things get hard and the temptation is to stop. It's hard to imagine anyone being better equipped to help others through their tough physical therapy journeys than Hannah Strom.

READ MORE: Hannah Strom Reflects on a Remarkable Recovery

"From not knowing where I was or what happened to now having my bachelor's degree, having spent the past three summers working at Spaulding (Rehabilitation), and now studying for my PTA, what a crazy and insane journey it has been."

Strom said she occasionally gets the urge to row again.