Once full of vigor and ambition, he suffered a severe traumatic brain injury in a car accident and was left in a vegetative state, repeatedly placed on critical‑condition notices. Once blissfully happy, she saw her world nearly shattered by her husband’s crash—yet, through 186 days of round‑the‑clock care, she helped bring forth a miracle of life…

In 2021, Ding Ying, a post‑90s native of Danyang, Zhenjiang, captured the internet’s attention with her heartwarming story of rekindling the love of her husband, Jiang Li, who had been in a vegetative state. Now, two years after Jiang Li regained consciousness, he continues to grapple with a host of complications and lingering effects stemming from severe damage to his frontal lobe—epilepsy, post‑traumatic psychiatric symptoms, and more. For Ding Ying, the road to recovery feels long and uncertain, yet she remains steadfastly positive: “Life is tough, but hard work is like a piece of candy.” She shares her husband’s rehabilitation journey online, has organized several support groups for families affected by brain injuries to offer mutual encouragement, and even launched livestreams to help local farmers. Over the past two-plus years, her videos have amassed more than 97.49 million likes.

Wedding photo of Jiang Li and Ding Ying

A beautiful life shattered by a car accident

At 10 a.m. on February 23, after tidying up the house, Ding Ying brought over a wooden bucket, filled it with warm water, and began soaking Jiang Li’s feet. “For patients with brain injuries like him,” she explained, “foot soaks help to promote circulation and invigorate the blood, and they also soften the heels.” Fifteen minutes later, she took a dry towel to pat his feet dry and started giving him a massage. “After each foot soak, we do some stretching—after six months spent lying in bed, both of his feet had lost strength.”

Before the accident, Jiang Li and Ding Ying’s love was the envy of many. Born in 1990, Ding Ying was one year younger than Jiang Li. In 2011, the two—both natives of Danyang—met on a train bound for Changchun, Jilin. At the time, Ding Ying was a beautiful college student far from home, pursuing her studies, while Jiang Li was a handsome, dashing soldier. “Our similar accents brought us closer, and he even gave me two pieces of chocolate that were almost melted,” she recalled.

The sweetness of chocolate is the taste of their love. After graduation, Ding Ying went to work at a foreign‑trade company in Shanghai, while Jiang Li moved to Guangzhou. After five years of a long-distance relationship, the couple married in 2016 and welcomed their daughter, Guazi.

A car written off after a traffic accident

The car accident on the evening of July 13, 2020 shattered the couple’s peaceful, beautiful life. “After the crash, a completely different chapter of my life began—one I had never imagined and for which I was utterly unprepared.”

At 10:15 p.m. that night, having finished work, Jiang Li sent his wife a WeChat message: “I’ll be home soon.” Ding Ying didn’t see it at the time; feeling unwell, she had turned off her phone early and gone to bed with their child. Around 1:30 a.m. on July 14, 2020, Jiang Li’s mother, Xu Zhaoying, received a call from the traffic police: “Jiang Li was in a serious car accident, and his condition is very critical.” By the time she arrived at the hospital, all Xu Zhaoying could make out was her son’s blood-soaked clothes outside the emergency room. Overwhelmed with grief, she burst into tears and nearly fainted.

It turned out that on the night of the incident, while driving through an intersection, Jiang Li was struck violently by a large semi-trailer truck. He fell into a deep coma, with a Glasgow Coma Scale score of only 3, indicating a very severe brain injury.

Critical Condition Notice

Subsequently, Jiang Li was issued multiple critical-condition notices. He was later diagnosed with cerebral contusion and laceration, traumatic diffuse axonal injury, traumatic intracranial hemorrhage, post-traumatic disturbance of consciousness, pulmonary contusion, and pulmonary infection…

Jiang Li lay on the hospital bed.

The Climbing Expedition to Mount Everest

During Jiang Li’s coma, Ding Ying experienced a brief moment of vulnerability and panic, but she soon realized that tears could not save her husband. Wiping away her tears, she mobilized every contact she had, seeking out doctors and medicines while arranging for Jiang Li to be transferred to another hospital. In the first four-plus months, Jiang Li suffered from a severe lung infection, with high fevers nearly every week. Ding Ying stayed by his bedside, vigilantly keeping watch night after night, meticulously recording his vital signs at regular intervals and compiling extensive nursing notes. Whenever therapists came to provide treatment, she would sit nearby, carefully studying their techniques—so much so that the doctors began calling her “half a therapist.” If only she had a medical background, she might have been able to stay on as a professional.

In late January 2021, more than six months after the car accident, Jiang Li responded to Ding Ying’s instruction to count her fingers, overcome with emotion: “My husband has woken up!” However, for a patient in a vegetative state, this awakening does not signify a return to normal function or the ability to care for oneself; the damage caused by the brain injury is irreversible.

“Caring for a patient with a brain injury is like climbing Mount Everest,” a doctor at the hospital told Ding Ying. “I know very few people can make it to the top, but I don’t care about the outcome—I care much more about the journey. There was a time when we thought Jiang Li would leave me and our child, but he pulled through. Now, every day is a gift, and I’m savoring life as it comes. So whatever challenges arise, we tackle them one by one.”

Ding Ying performed traction for Jiang Li.

Fourteen months after Jiang Li’s car accident, he began exhibiting signs of mental disturbance. Due to his psychiatric condition, he grew increasingly reluctant to speak, requiring Ding Ying to gently coax him into conversation—often for long, drawn-out periods—yet he still refused to open his mouth. Even worse, he started harming both others and himself. During acupuncture sessions, he would drive the needles deep into his flesh; in speech‑therapy exercises, he would kick the computer desk with such force that long, bloody marks remained on his right leg; and when undergoing hyperbaric oxygen therapy, he would lash out at nurses, fellow patients, and family members, making it impossible for him to cooperate with his rehabilitation.

In the second half of 2021, while at the hospital, Jiang Li was often irritable, and Ding Ying was covered in bruises. In 2022, during an episode at home, Jiang Li kicked Ding Ying, knocking her unconscious on the spot; she was later diagnosed with a mild concussion. That same year, during another bout of illness, Jiang Li repeatedly swung his fists at their daughter… Meanwhile, Ding Ying kept reassuring their daughter: “Dad’s sick—he doesn’t recognize us anymore—but he’ll get better.”

Ding Ying hosts a livestream to support farmers.

“Life is tough, but hard work is a piece of candy.”

For families of individuals with brain injuries, overcoming immense psychological pressure is essential to facing their current reality head-on and sharing their experiences. Ding Ying has done just that. On February 2, 2021—her birthday—she began documenting Jiang Li’s daily rehabilitation journey on short-video platforms. To date, she has posted a total of 4,872 videos across multiple series, including home-based recovery, support for farmers and students, family interactions, in-hospital rehab training, everyday life, and more. Her content has amassed 940,000 followers and 97.49 million likes, with some fans even saying they “binge‑watch” her videos every day, simply to see the daily interactions of this family of three.

After his injury, Jiang Li’s cognitive abilities were comparable to those of a three-year-old child; even simple tasks like going up and down stairs were extremely difficult, and he could barely manage daily living on his own. It took more than eight months—repeatedly adjusting his posture and the amount of force he applied—for Ding Ying to teach him how to climb stairs, and now she still spends several hours each day training him. “At the beginning of the year, I saw several videos Ding Ying posted showing that Jiang Li was already able to ride a tricycle—the progress has been truly remarkable,” said Pan Xingming, deputy director of the Neurological Rehabilitation Ward at Nanjing Zijin Hospital, who has been closely following Jiang Li’s recovery. “His condition has far exceeded our expectations.”

“Lying on the bed sprawled out, with a ventilator, a gastric tube, a urinary catheter, and a tracheostomy; electrodes plastered all over my body, and the bedside monitor beeping nonstop around the clock… Jiang Li, how many years have passed since flowers bloomed and fell? We’re on the road back to normal life—hahaha, how cool is that!” Ding Ying wrote beneath a short video. This playful message echoes the upbeat spirit she conveys to her online audience: no matter how tough life gets, “hard work is still a piece of candy.”

In Ding Ying’s heart, her husband, a retired serviceman, is a proud and passionate man; even now, whenever he sees the national flag or hears the national anthem, his eyes light up and tears well in his eyes. To preserve that pride, over the past few years she has exhausted their family savings and borrowed money from everywhere to pay for his medical treatment. Yet she refuses to enable the tipping feature during her livestreams. “We don’t want to rely too heavily on others’ support, and we also want to set an example for our daughter—teaching her that facing life takes courage, that she must depend on herself, and that no one can change her circumstances but her own efforts.”

Last year, Ding Ying established three WeChat groups for families of patients with traumatic brain injuries, where she exchanged experiences and offered mutual encouragement with fellow family members across the country. She later launched livestreaming initiatives to support farmers, selling products such as apples from the Greater Liangshan Mountains, Wuming ponkans, and Jinggangshan bamboo shoots. In just 20 days, more than 60,000 jin of “ugly” apples from Greater Liangshan were sold, and throughout the year, a total of 166,000 jin of ponkans were marketed. Subsequently, she also took on sponsorship for seven children’s education.

In early 2023, Ding Ying helped Jiang Li apply for a disability certificate; an assessment determined that Jiang Li has a Level‑II intellectual disability. The Zhenjiang and Danyang Disabled Persons’ Federations have pledged to continue providing ongoing support for Jiang Li’s rehabilitation. “Along this journey, we’ve focused wholeheartedly on his daily progress, refusing to dwell on the future—because we know all too well that positive outcomes cannot be achieved through empty slogans, nor can they simply materialize through tears, wishful thinking, or hope. Instead, we choose to face reality, take concrete action, and strive for a better life through consistent effort, day after day…”