Honoring her ‘proud military mom’
Jennifer Hutchinson is dedicating her 100 Miles for Hope to her "proud military mom."
While work schedules have forced an adjusted Mother’s Day celebration, Hutchinson and Karen Costa share a bond that goes well beyond the single parent raising her only child.
That fuels Hutchinson’s resolve for this year’s American Legion fitness/wellness campaign that raises funds for The American Legion’s Veterans & Children Foundation. As of May 4, she was approaching 200 miles total. (Learn more about the challenge and sign up here.)
“People look at my miles and say, ‘Wow, you’re a hero,’” says Hutchinson, an Army veteran and member of American Legion Post 007 in Gainesville, Ga. “And I have to say, ‘No, I’m not. My mother is.’”
Even in the darkest moment of their lives, Costa’s relentlessly positive outlook served as an inspiration to her daughter. In the blink of an eye on a dark highway in downtown Atlanta, their lives would change forever.
‘A hellacious two and a half years’
Even though it was around 10 p.m., traffic was at a standstill. As the flow began to restart, Hutchinson took her foot off the brake.
“As I started to press on the accelerator — WHAM! — we were rear-ended,” she recalled, adding that she pulled the car over and put on the flashers. “I jumped out of the car because I was angry. Who hit me?”
Hutchinson was reviewing the damage and taking photos while calling 911. Her mom and the other driver were exchanging car insurance information between their vehicles.
“All of a sudden, it sounded like a train wreck. (Another driver) slams into the BMW, which originally hit us, and smashes into my mom and pins her in between the two cars.”
Police estimate the car was traveling about 65-70 mph. There were no skid marks. The impact catapulted Hutchinson into the ground.
“When I looked around, I could see under mom’s car and could see her two feet off the ground,” she recalled. “I looked down at my femur and it had burst out of my jeans. The discipline for me to not look again was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”
Angry and concerned for her mother, she began hitting the side of the car.
“I didn’t know if she was alive until I heard her scream. I was in a lot of pain and didn’t really know what was going on.”
Both mom and daughter went in and out of consciousness. “I don’t remember seeing flashers or hearing sirens,” Hutchinson recalled. “They put me on a stretcher and I remember telling the firefighter, ‘Please don’t drop me. Please don’t drop me.’”
For the next 11 days, she was in the intensive care unit at the hospital. She fractured her pelvis, was bleeding internally, and sustained a burn and other injuries.
Her recovery has included 11 surgeries, a year of physical therapy, six months of keeping weight off her injured leg, and treating the burn for seven months. “It’s been awful,” she said. “It’s been a hellacious two and a half years.”
Overcoming adversity
For two years, Hutchinson was angry. She was depressed. She didn’t exercise. “I didn’t want to do anything,” she said. “I just looked at my leg as a burden. What did I do wrong that God would do this to me?”
She started slow, walking a half mile a day. Then she walked around a state park. The fresh air “re-energized me. How could I have spent my whole life not appreciating this?”
Before the accident, she somewhat jokingly estimates she walked a mile a month. Now, it’s four or miles daily.
“It helps immensely with my mental health. The outdoors has helped me the most with my mental health after the accident,” Hutchinson said. “I had a lot of anger. Mom kept telling me, ‘Don’t be angry.’ How in the world can you not be angry? A woman ran us over — car vs. pedestrian. She didn’t mean any malice but I still harbored that animosity.”
Hutchinson, who works full time and has five children, uses her lunch breaks for her daily walks. While the beauty of nature originally motivated her to begin walking, it’s been her mother who has served as an inspiration.
Costa lost both her legs in the crash. Now a bilateral amputee, she has learned how to walk again, has retaught herself to drive and recently stopped using her cane. She is currently on her sixth set of prosthetic legs.
“She chose a poppy-inspired theme to honor fallen soldiers,” her daughter said. “She is very proud of her red poppies and will jump at the chance to tell anyone about their meaning.”
Throughout the past two and a half years, Hutchinson has experienced dark moments. Costa has shined a light of hope throughout the ordeal.
“They say that her contagious smile has never changed,” Hutchinson said. “She has continued to have a smile on her face (even after the accident). She feels blessed to be alive when there were many days when I did not want to be alive myself.
“I feel guilty now for being selfish for thinking that I didn’t want to be alive or that I didn’t want to be a burden. I was in so much pain.”
Hutchinson still bears the scars of the crash. She lost four inches from her femur. She will need to take two antibiotics for the rest of her life. But she has found resiliency, meaning and motivation through her mother.
“As a teenager, I never would have said she was my hero,” Hutchinson said. “Even in the service my heroes were colonels, my mentors and people like that. But her faith has never wavered after the accident. She has not been able to walk even a quarter-mile yet. So walking 100 miles for her is my pleasure. She has grit, determination and ambition. And everything a child would want in a perfect mother.”