A documentary about the particularly impressive life of Jur Deitmers has appeared on NPO. Jur is 21 when, while studying at Erasmus School of Economics, he spends a year studying at Harvard. Together with some college friends, he decides to go to Mexico for a holiday. Before he went, he was already not feeling well, something that would only get worse during the holiday.
Ivo Niehe made a three-part documentary about Jur's recovery process. The first two episodes are already online, the last episode will be shown on 15 December. In the documentary, it becomes clear what kind of process Jur went through and what he is still struggling with.
Jur started behaving increasingly weird in Mexico. When he texted his friend that he was in a famous building at Harvard, his friend knew things were serious. He went looking for Jur and found him in the street with only his trousers and socks on. Together they then went to a hospital, where they could not actually help him any further. He was then taken by plane to the hospital in San Diego, where his parents came to see him. There it was diagnosed that Jur had a brain infection, Encephalitis. It was an arduous process and after five weeks he was allowed to leave the hospital in America.
However, the battle did not end there for Jur. He had lost his memory and could not remember anything from the first 21 years of his life. In the Netherlands, he started rebuilding his knowledge step by step with his primary school teacher. He had retained his language, but all associations with it had been lost. Gradually, reconstruction began with a lot of patience from everyone around him. Eventually, Jur managed to complete the last courses of his Bachelor in Economics and Business Economics and his Bachelor in Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam. After this, he wrote his thesis, which allowed him to take two diplomas in his hands.
Jur started the ItsME foundation in 2019 to raise more money for research for meningitis and brain inflammation. Every year, the foundation organises one or more events. Also, Jur has written a book about his experiences.
