Jennifer Duncan nearly gave her life to protect her infant child after they were thrown off a 30-foot high bridge.
The 23-year-old mother was in a minor highway accident in Waco Texas. She pulled her damaged vehicle off the main road and moved to what should have been a safe area with her 8-month-old son. While waiting for the first responders, another car slammed into Jennifer and her son and threw them off the bridge.
Plummeting towards the hard pavement below, Jennifer wrapped her body around her infant and prayed. Then she hit asphalt and everything went black.
Miraculously, her body acted like a protective cocoon and her baby was left unharmed. Jennifer, however, was left in critical condition. She spent the next 2 months in a hospital with a shattered pelvis, 9 broken bones in her back, two fractured legs, multiple fractured ribs, and severe internal bleeding. The damage was so bad that one of her legs had to be amputated.
Jennifer’s horrific injuries left her bound to a wheelchair, but she knows her son’s life was worth the sacrifice. “My main concern was keeping him safe, making sure he was going to be okay and I didn’t know what to expect moment by moment,” Jennifer said to a reporter. “I just took like one second look and seeing that we were falling I just tried to grab as tight as I can to him.”
14 surgeries and months of rehab later, Jennifer is almost ready to learn how to walk again. “I don’t give up because I know he’s looking at me to be his role model and so I try not to give up,” Jennifer said. “I just try to keep moving forward and living each day as if we’re still blessed the same way we were 7 months ago.”
Seven months after the crash, Jennifer sat down for her first public interview since the devastating fall.