Mother Of Rubicon Trail Accident Victim Talks About Terrifying Ordeal
EL DORADO COUNTY (CBS13) - "Your world is just never going to be the same and everything flashes before you in seconds."
That was the reaction from Leesa Williams when she learned her 21-year-old daughter had nearly died after her jeep rolled over on the Rubicon Trail in El Dorado County.
"It was my mom and I knew when the phone rang and it was her, I'm like 'something's not right,'" she said.
It's the moment any mother would dread. Williams learned that her daughter Rachel Gray had been in a terrible accident.
"Your entire world stops," Williams said. "Everything you thought you knew is gone."
Rachel was rock-crawling on the Rubicon Trail two weeks ago. Her jeep went off the side of a cliff and caught fire.
She was air-lifted to the hospital.
"I just kept talking to her and asking her to hang on," Williams said.
And she has, even with third-degree burns on 75 percent of her body, crushed ribs, a broken pelvis and an amputated leg.
"Rachel's in serious condition, there's no doubt," her mother said. "We take it hour by hour, day by day. What gets us through that is looking at knowing she's going to be running marathons."
Rachel's recovery will be long, but her mother knows she has the drive to pull through and the strength to not only help herself, but others facing the unfathomable.
"For Rachel Anne's story to be an inspiration and to be kind of a wake-up call for those of us who have taken so many things for granted," her mother said.
After what happened, Rachel's friends came up with The Rage Foundation. So far they have raised $25,000 to help pay for her recovery.
Rachel is expecting to be in the burn unit another six months and faces a long recovery after that.
