Lidwina (Dutch Liduina) was born on March 18, 1380 at Schiedam in the County of Holland (modern Netherlands) to a Dutch peasant family. Her father was a nightwatchman at Schiedam.
On February 2, 1396, at the age of 15, Lidwina suffered a famous ice-skating accident on the frozen canal at Schiedam — falling and breaking a rib. The broken rib became infected, producing the 37 years (1396–1433) of continuous chronic illness and progressive physical disability.
Lidwina's chronic illness — diagnosed by modern medical historians as probably multiple sclerosis or a related progressive neurological disease — progressively destroyed her physical health: headaches, vomiting, fever, the eventual paralysis of her entire body, the loss of sight in one eye, the chronic wounds producing continuous suppuration.
During her 37-year chronic illness, Lidwina undertook the vocation of 'redemptive suffering' — offering her continuous physical pain in union with the Passion of Christ for the salvation of souls. She reported the mystical-ecstatic experiences (visions of Christ, of the Blessed Virgin, of the saints, and ecstatic-mystical unions with the divine Passion), and the documented Eucharistic-inedia (reporting to live exclusively on the reception of the sacred host for long periods of her illness).
In 1421 during the famous St. Elizabeth's Flood (catastrophic North Sea storm-flood that destroyed vast portions of the Zuid-Holland coastal area, one of the principal natural disasters of medieval European history), Lidwina survived — her Schiedam house miraculously spared from the flooding.
Lidwina died at Schiedam on April 14, 1433 at the age of 53. Her 'redemptive suffering' vocation established her patronage of the chronically ill and of those who have lost patience.