Information About Jeroen Marijn van den Beemt

Memories

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Jeroen was in the navy and intended to become a professional, but his girlfriend at the time thought it was terrible if he was away for only a week, and he decided to leave the navy. He then found a job in Vianen, near where his mother Sonja worked.

One day he had to start early and asked to borrow Sonja’s car. He asked me if I could take her to work. We drove the same road an hour later and were redirected. Sonja arrived at the company where she worked, the Lancia importer, and a co-worker said how can you be here, your car is a total loss somewhere. In the meantime I drove back; the diversion had by then been lifted and I saw our car standing there along the road. I immediately turned around, picked up Sonja and we went to the hospital. They were working on him all day. In the evening he was taken to the intensive care unit, and we were told that he had a serious brain injury and was in a coma; that it was unclear whether he would ever wake up.

He was in a coma for three months. When he finally woke up from that, he was physically and mentally handicapped. Fortunately he was able to do a number of things by himself, and we have also done our best to make him live as independently as possible. We have always been aware that something could happen to us, and we wanted him to be able to at least take care of himself. We let him do the things he wanted to do as much as possible.

Because of his handicap he had to be admitted quite often. The last time he was admitted, he fell and then again suffered brain damage. He eventually died in 2010.