Back in 2017, Jennifer Flewellen’s life changed in an instant during her commute to work. After dropping her kids off at school, she suddenly felt lightheaded and lost control of her vehicle, crashing into a pole. The accident left her in critical condition, and she remained in a coma for five long years.
Through every hurdle, Jennifer’s mother, Peggy Means, remained a steadfast beacon of hope for her daughter’s recovery. Despite doctors repeatedly delivering grim prognoses, Peggy refused to lose faith. “They kept telling me, after like day two or three, to consider taking her off life support,” Means recalled. “But I said, ‘No, not today, it’s not the right time.’
And every day, they pushed, but I kept saying, ‘It’s in God’s hands.'” Peggy’s unwavering hope never faltered. Against all odds, she diligently cared for Jennifer day in and day out, maintaining a positive outlook and treating her with unwavering love and belief, even when others doubted.
“I’d tell her what the kids are doing, what we’ve been doing, and I tried to encourage her,” Peggy told GMA.
“For years I would hold her hands and say ‘Just squeeze my hand, Jenn. Squeeze my hand.”
But she never did.
Finally, on August 25, 2022, during a walk, Jennifer laughed at a joke Peggy made. After nearly five years, Jenn woke up.
In the following weeks, with speech therapy and Peggy’s support, Jennifer progressed from making small sounds to saying vowels and even spelling words. In less than a year, she returned home full-time.
Last fall, Jennifer attended her son Julian’s high school football games, fulfilling a dream for both of them.
“About a year ago, I had it in my mind that she was going to come to my game, she was going to come to my senior year, senior night and things like that,” Julian told WBND-LD. “I’ve talked about it for a while, and I dreamed of it and prayed for it, and it happened.”
Despite the progress, Peggy remains focused on Jennifer’s continued recovery and sets goals for her, emphasizing the need to stay positive and keep working towards improvement.
“We have a lot of work to do still, so we stay busy,” Means said. “I want her to walk. I want everything, as much as possible, and we don’t know what’s possible, so we just have to keep doing it.”
