The story of Jennifer Flewellen is nothing short of a miracle, and it might all be thanks to her mother, who had enough hope to believe that her daughter would one day recover from an accident that sent her into a coma.
September 25, 2017, was the day Jennifer's life changed when she was on her way to work. While driving, the then 35-year-old mother of three became lightheaded while on the phone with her then-husband. According to her mom, Peggy Means, she veered off the road and hit a pole. Peggy got a phone call that her daughter was in a serious car crash and rushed to the hospital.
Jennifer was flown to a larger hospital, where she was placed on life support and put in a medically induced coma. At the time, doctors had no faith that she would survive, but her mother held on to hope.
"They encouraged me, by like day two or three to take her off [life support]," Peggy remembered. "I said, 'No, not as of today, we're not going to do that.' And then each day, they kind of encouraged me more, and I'd say, 'No, it's in God's hands.'"
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For the next five years, Peggy held on to her hope and advocated for the best possible care for her daughter, despite everyone around her moving on. "I remember one respiratory nurse, she told me, 'Well, you know, she'll only get worse,' and I told her, 'Don't you ever say that to me again, and never say it around my daughter,'" she said. "I'd say, 'It's very easy to be negative, but we have no room for negativity.'"
During the time in the coma, her daughter was transferred to at least five different hospitals and long-term care facilities. Peggy initially could only visit Jennifer three days a week, as she was working 10-hour shifts as a full-time industrial sewer. When her employer allowed her to take her machine home, she was able to visit her daughter daily.
Feeling like her daughter had been forgotten, it was crucial to Peggy for her to keep showing up. "Your friends quit coming," she said, adding that Jennifer's husband and sons moved on as a way of coping. "For the boys, it was very hard. It was like [their] mom was gone."
Despite the odds, she continued to tend to her daughter. "I remember a lady at work said, 'How do you do it?' and I just said, 'I do what I have to do,'" she shared. "I would tell Jenn, 'I have so much love in my heart for you,' you know, it goes without saying. You just do it." In August 2022, Peggy's consistent efforts made a change.
While walking her daughter outside, she decided to make a joke. "She started laughing," Peggy said of Jennifer, which scared her at first. "I started to wheel her up to the building, and then I thought, she's laughing, so I stopped and got my phone out." She was able to capture the first moment that her daughter responded to anyone in five years, and from there the rest is history.
Over the next months, with the help of her mom and different therapies, Jennifer made an astounding recovery. She now lives with her mom and her mom's boyfriend. Her oldest son also lives with them, and she was even able to make senior night for her son Julian.
"This is a story about Jenn, but it's really a story about her mom too, as an unsung hero," Dr. Ralph Wang, someone who cared for Jennifer, said. "A lot of times people don't do well in nursing homes or even at home because their caregivers get burned out or they get busy. In this case, her mom really drove everything, especially while Jenn was comatose. It's a lot of work."
