In 1999, Joy Veron was vacationing with her family in the Colorado mountains when the unthinkable happened. Her three children — Chloe, then 7, Annie, then 5, and Elliot, then 3 — had excitedly run ahead of the adults and climbed into the family’s SUV, eager to go for one last swim before heading home to Texas. In an instant, the gear slipped and the SUV began to roll — straight toward a steep cliff at the edge of a deep canyon.
Joy screamed, watching her children trapped inside the careening SUV as it picked up speed.
“I just saw complete fear. I remember their little eyes were huge, looking at me just like, ‘Help me. Do something,'” Joy later recalled on “The Oprah Show” in 2004.
To save her kids, Joy threw her body in the path of the SUV.
“I remember being pulled under the car, and I remember thinking, ‘I didn’t make it in time and I’m getting run over. I’m going to hear a crash pretty soon,'” Joy said.
Instead, her effort slowed the SUV just enough for her father to jump inside and pull the emergency brake without a second to spare. The children were safe. Joy, however, was badly injured.
Her body had been shattered by the SUV, and though she survived, Joy was told by hospital doctors that there was a less than 1 percent chance of walking again.
Joy may be unable to get around without a wheelchair, but she hasn’t let it hold her back, according to her children.
“I actually think she does more than most moms do even walking,” Annie says.
“She’s definitely my inspiration,”
Her daughters made the video above for Mothers Day this year… just to thank their mom for being their rock. Have a watch but get the tissues ready.
