Law Alumna: "What I Learned From Being Burned Alive"
When Lydia Winkler (L’19, B’19) arrived at Tulane, she wasn't content to follow a traditional path. As a JD/MBA student, she immersed herself in New Orleans' entrepreneurial ecosystem, launched ventures, competed in business plan competitions and developed the combination of legal and business skills that would shape her career.
Along the way, she founded a nonprofit dedicated to helping inmates prepare to go before the parole board, and co-founded RentCheck, a technology company designed to make renting fairer and more transparent for tenants and property owners alike.
That drive to build, innovate and solve problems became a hallmark of Winkler's professional life. But in 2020, just a year after graduating, she faced a challenge no amount of planning could prepare her for.
In a powerful new essay for The Wall Street Journal, Winkler recounts a catastrophic paraplane accident that left her stranded more than 100 feet above the ground while suffering severe chemical burns. The experience launched her into a long and painful recovery, forcing her to confront uncertainty, vulnerability and the limits of control. Winkler also recorded a TEDx talk about her experience.
I’d been carrying this around half-told for years," Winkler said of her essay, told six years after the harrowing incident. "Writing it was me finally finishing a thing I’d left open."
Today, Winkler remains as the founder and leader of both the start-up and nonprofit she founded at Tulane, RentCheck and REEP (Relief Effort for Earning Parole). She also is an entrepreneur-in-residence at Oneday and calls Brooklyn home.
The same resilience and determination that fueled her entrepreneurial pursuits at Tulane would become essential to her survival. In "What I Learned From Being Burned Alive," Winkler reflects on the accident, her recovery and the lessons she learned about fear, gratitude and what truly matters when life changes in an instant.
Read her essay or listen to her TEDx talk and learn how one Tulane alumna transformed an unimaginable tragedy into a story of perseverance, perspective and hope.
