For most of his life, Jimmy was institutionalized because he was mentally retarded. However, in 1966, Jimmy was released to his brother and sister-in-law. Having the IQ of a 12-year-old, he felt closest to his nephew, whose life he saved when he fell into the water by the docks where Jimmy and his brother worked. By saving his nephew, he was accepted by the other dockworkers, managing to stay out of the institution.Details(http://quantumleap.wikia.com/wiki/Jimmy_LaMotta): Jimmy LaMotta was a mentally disabled young man, whom Sam helped twice. Jimmy, who was a sufferer of Down's Syndrome, was the younger brother of dockworker Frank LaMotta (Frank D'Aquino). His mental retardation had caused him to be brought up in an institution. By his early 20s he was educated enough to function fairly normally - having a mental age of about 12 - and was released, to live with Frank and his family in Oakland California, 1964.Sam leaps into Jimmy to get him a job working on the local docks, to help him be accepted by his colleagues and by Frank's wife Connie. He faced severe prejudice and bullying at first, but ultimately succeeded and secured Jimmy's future.In 1954, the point of time which Sam leaps into, assuming the body of a Sam Bederman, he suffers a session of electro-shock treatment which temporarily erased his true identity. This caused personalities of his previous leapees to take over. One of the personas he assumed was that of Jimmy.Sam later became Jimmy again in 1966, and found that Connie had been replaced by another time traveller, Alia. He had to prevent her from destroying the family and returning Jimmy to the institution. Show less «