As her mother describes it, Jen Retzer was on top of the world.

The two-time all-state St. John Vianney High School star softball pitcher was living a dream life. After graduating from University of Pennsylvania as a softball standout, Retzer was living in New York City working in human relations at Guggenheim Partners. Her boyfriend was preparing to move to the city to join her.

Everything was going well.

But a devastating skiing accident left the former athlete clinging to life, robbing her of her ability to walk and speak.

Two years after the accident, Retzer, now 25, continues to fight to regain full mobility and her independence.

“I’m just glad to be alive,” Retzer said. “From there, I’m just determined to get better and to get back.”

A bad prognosis

Retzer, a Manalapan native, had never been skiing before when she traveled to Stratton, Vermont, with her college friends for a skiing trip in February 2017. Retzer was trying to master the beginner’s hill when her friends invited her to move to a more advanced hill with them. Not wanting to hold her more experienced friends back, Retzer stayed at the bunny hill by herself.

No one knows exactly what happened next. Retzer has no memory of the incident. There were no witnesses to the accident. It’s theorized that she might have hit her head, while wearing a helmet, on a snow making machine along the slope. A fellow skier found Retzer laying on the ground unconscious.

Retzer was in a coma. She had injured her cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls fine motor functions and speech. She wouldn’t wake up for six weeks.

During that time, doctors in the ICU prepared Retzer’s family for the worst. There was no guarantee that she would ever wake up from her coma. In fact, it looked unlikely that she would, and if she did, she could be in a vegetative state.

“In the ICU, they literally said, ‘prepare yourself that your daughter is not going to wake up,’” said Karen Retzer, Jen’s mother. “Those were (the doctor’s) words. I couldn’t fathom it at the time.”

Retzer would occasionally squeeze her mother’s hand while comatose and miraculously awoke a month and a half later. When she did, she was extremely confused. She didn’t know why she was in the hospital, and the accident had wiped memories from the previous few years, including her graduation from the University of Pennsylvania. She couldn’t walk and couldn’t speak.

Karen Retzer and Jen’s sister, Jackie, had to fill her in on what happened. When Karen and Jackie told Jen that she was living in the city working for an investment bank, Jen light-heartedly cracked that she was doing well in life.

“I just couldn’t think of it. I stayed positive saying, ‘I know she’s going to come back,’” Karen Retzer said of those harrowing weeks of uncertainty. “The main thing is, she’s still Jen. She has her sense of humor and personality. She’s very quick-witted, and she still makes jokes about her accident. If we see someone skiing, she goes, ‘Oh, remember when I went skiing? Too soon?’”

'You need to laugh'

By June of that same year, Jen Retzer began her rehab at Kessler Rehabilitation Center in West Orange. Initially confined to a wheelchair 24/7, Retzer, who moved in with her mother in Freehold, began walking with the aid of crutches just six months after her injury. When going to a hibachi restaurant with her family, a defiant and determined Retzer refused to use her wheelchair and has been on her own two feet ever since.

Her speech has slowly come back as well. She can speak but has trouble with volume control as her words come out slightly above a whisper.

Using the hard work ethic honed as a Division I athlete, Retzer has never stopped working during her recovery, which has become a full-time job. Her doctors have remarked that Retzer never gets tired and always wants to do more at the end of a session. Even after a full day's worth of physical therapy, Retzer does floor exercises, balancing routines and work on her Peloton bike at home.

Through all this hard work, Retzer doesn’t let pessimism of the terrible hand she’s been dealt get in her way.

“I think it helps the outcome if you just stay positive no matter what,” Retzer said. “If you don’t laugh at things, it can be so depressing. You need to laugh.”

Retzer has also made great strides at the Neuro Studio in Manasquan with her trainer Meghann Koppele Duffy, the co-founder. There, Retzer takes part in Pilates training and mental exercises that help heal her cerebellum.

By all metrics, all of Retzer’s doctors say she’s experienced unusually quick progress.

“Getting better is not easy, it takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of mental toughness, so unfortunately not everyone recovers from brain injuries,” Duffy said. “It’s sometimes hard as a practitioner when you know there’s tools that someone can use and they just for multiple reasons can’t get there. It’s nice to see someone taking everything she’s taught and really implementing it and living it.”

In Duffy, Retzer has found not only a terrific trainer but also a great friend. During their sessions, Duffy can resist only a few minutes without cracking a joke. It immediately brings a smile to Retzer’s face. They chat about the latest "Real Housewives" gossip, and Duffy brings her dog, a golden retriever/hound mix named Charlie Bear, to many sessions to the delight of Retzer.

“She keeps me grounded and motivated,” Duffy said. “She comes in, everything is stacked against you, you have bad days, you’re human, it helps to put things in perspective.”

Behind the laughs, there is some serious work being done in the tiny Manasquan studio. Retzer takes her rehab very seriously just as she did her work in the pitcher’s circle.

When Duffy celebrates minor progress like a toe movement, it elicits an eye roll from Retzer. She’s hard on herself because she’s relentlessly striving for her goal of normalcy.

“The ultimate goal would be being on my own again, living, doing everything how I used to live,” Retzer said. “I just want to get out there and start life. That really keeps me going.”

'I'm not done'

Aside from living independently once again, Retzer has another goal. She wants to be a Pilates instructor because she wants to work with people who are dealing with similar brain injuries.

“I just want to help people in a way that it’s helped me so much,” Retzer said. “I think that would be really great.”

Retzer has received invaluable support during this journey. Her family has been with her every step of the way, Duffy is one of many medical professionals aiding her, and her boyfriend, John, who has been with her since before the accident, has never left her side.

She also shares a special bond with her former high school coach, Kim Lombardi, who regularly checks in with her.

“It was devastating to me, but she’s such a fighter, such a hard worker, she’s fighting all odds, they said she probably wasn’t going to make it, but she made it, and now she’s working hard to walk,” said Lombardi, who visited Retzer at the hospital the day she woke up from her coma. “She’s come so far in two years. She has her mind there, she’s so mentally strong, and she’s determined to back to live a good life again.”

Retzer’s recovery is pricey. Insurance covered her initial stay at the hospital and the traditional physical therapy, but the extras like Pilates comes out of the Retzer family’s pocket. A Pilates certification needed to become an instructor costs about $10,000.

But along the way, Retzer has received financial aid. Lombardi, with the help of Middletown North coach Chris Hoffman, organized a fundraiser for her former player the last two years at the Monmouth County High School Softball Tournament as a yellow heart patch with Retzer's old uniform number 15 stitched to her players’ right sleeves.

A fundraising event was also held at a Pilates studio New York City for Retzer this past March. Duffy also created a GoFundMe page for Retzer.

Retzer’s progress is truly amazing. Though her gait is still shaky, she’s able to walk with the aid of hand crutches. She speaks in short and quiet sentences, but she gets right to the point with powerful and concise phrases. Her personality has not changed one bit.

When asked about how far she’s come from her terrible accident just over two years ago, Retzer summed up her progress perfectly.

“I’ve come an extremely long way, but all I can say is, I’m not done,” Retzer said. “When I’m back in the world, that’s when I’ll say I’m done.”

To donate toRetzer's recovery and Pilates certification efforts, click here.

Daniel LoGiudice: @danny_logiudice; dlogiudice@gannettnj.com.