A teenager has spoken about the moment that she thought she was ‘done’ after a horrific car accident.
Kennedy Littledike is a teenager from Nampa, Idaho, USA, who made it out the other end of the potentially fatal crash on the road while driving two of her friends.
It had been two days since the teen broke up with her then-boyfriend, as her two best friends encouraged her to do something fun as she was feeling down about the end of her relationship.
Kennedy explained her side of the story in an interview. (Youtube/Inside Edition)
They suggested that they drive to a nearby mountain, park the car at the base and hike up it to see a scenic sunset, which the trio managed to do, before making their way down and beginning the trip home.
But just then, something caused Kennedy to start crying again, causing her to lose control of the car, slipping off to the left before an over-correction caused the vehicle to flip and roll continuously and as no one had their seatbelts on, they were thrown out.
In an interview on YouTube with Inside Edition, the 19-year-old explained what state she was in, health-wise: “I wasn’t on the ground, I was actually hanging in the power line by my broken leg so all three of us were thrown out, and I was hanging up there.
Kennedy miraculously survived the horror accident (TikTok/@_kickitkennedy_9)
“In the process of getting thrown my arm was actually torn off and was hanging on by the skin on my back and then my femur was snapped over the wire and hanging in front of my face.”
Kennedy explained that she didn’t bleed out as the main artery in her leg was pinched off by the power line, while the main artery on her arm was cauterised from being electrocuted, though she was drowning in her own blood.
After an hour, authorities managed to get her free as they had to turn the power off on the power line, as she recalled: “He just grabbed my leg and had to take it out of the wire and you just watch my body lifelessly fall on the stretcher.”
They had to get her bone back too, as she was later told that she screamed while being saved, but was in silence as soon as she hit the stretcher.
“I think it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around it, I can’t remember if I said it in my mind or actually said it,” she began to explain.
“But I remember feeling like saying ‘thank you for trying to save my life but this is it for me’, and I remember like closing my eyes and just, done.”
Her father had arrived to the scene of the accident, getting on his knees to ask God not to take his daughter from him, later kissing her on the forehead and blessing her, though medics told her father that she was not going to make it.
After being flown to the University of Utah, she discovered just how bad the damage was.
“I broke my femur, I broke my humerus bone, I broke my clavicle and then I have a brachial plexus injury, my leg was shredded pretty bad from that wire,” she explained, revealing that it needed to be amputated.
This horrific photo shows how helpless Kennedy was when she was on the power line. (Kennedy News and Media)
Doctors couldn’t save her leg, going through five amputations to try and salvage as much as they could, trying to leave as much of the leg as possible, as it would make it easier for her to walk and function with more leg.
“They tried taking it at my knee, like through my knee and this process is hard because my leg just kept rotting because the bone was broken so high up, that they just were like trying to keep as much as possible.
“I had a total of 21 surgeries for everything that was going on with me.”
Luckily for her passengers, no one else lost a limb, but Kennedy eventually had her leg amputated at the bone, a huge burden for a 16-year-old at the time.
Despite the hardships, she says that she’s happy that she had the experience, which took her several months to heal from, as she has become a public speaker, spreading positivity and attempting to make a difference in the world.
She said: “I would go through it all again just to have that rewarding feeling and feeling like I made a difference in someone’s life.”
Featured Image Credit: Kennedy News and Media / Youtube/Inside Edition
A teenager who was left hanging from a power line by her broken leg following a devastating car crash has explained what the scariest part of the horror accident was.
Kennedy Littledike, 19, was left dangling 30ft in the air for around an hour as she waited to be rescued, after losing control of her vehicle and smashing into a power pole in the US state of Idaho.
She recalled how she was ‘drowning in her own blood’, which was gushing from the severe injuries she had sustained to her arm and leg as a concerned crowd gathered below when the life-changing incident took place on 22 May, 2021.
Kennedy Littledike miraculously survived the horrific car crash in 2021 (YouTube/kennedylittledike3801)
The motor flipped and rolled, sending the teen and her two friends flying out of the vehicle – leaving one knocked unconscious and the other bleeding heavily, having suffered shattered vertebrae and broken bones, among other injuries.
Kennedy on the other hand had been ejected 30ft into the air and ended up landing on the power line – which she reckons ultimately saved her life.
You may be wondering why she should be grateful for ending up suspended on an electrical cable, but incredibly, the main artery in her leg was pinched off by it and the main one in her arm was cauterised when she was electrocuted by the line – which essentially stopped her from bleeding to death.
The youngster was eventually rescued from the wire and rushed to hospital, where she was placed in a medical coma.
The teenager was left hanging from a power line 30ft in the air (Kennedy News and Media)
Doctors were forced to amputate Kennedy’s leg, while she also suffered partial paralysis in one of her arms.
She initially worried that she would never find love again due to her injuries, but she is now in the ‘happiest relationship‘ with her boyfriend who she met last year.
The brave 19-year-old, who underwent more than 21 surgeries, has come on leaps and bounds with her recovery and has managed to build up a substantial following on social media by sharing her story and inspiring others.
She has a new lease of life since getting a prosthetic leg – and regularly shares snaps of her enjoying activities such as skiing, rock climbing and mountain biking, proving she can do anything she puts her mind to.
In a YouTube video discussing the traumatic accident, Kennedy revealed what the ‘scariest part’ of the entire ordeal was.
She explained: “The scariest part was definitely waking up on the wire, because I’m not supposed to be there…so I don’t know why I’m there. So I was confused and everyone was just looking at me and not getting me down.
She has since found love again and says she is in the ‘happiest relationship’ with her new man (Instagram/@_kickitkenny_9)
“And trying to like stay alive, because I remember I knew if I cried, that was it for me,” she recalled. “I’ve never been a big crier, I hate crying, I just feel weak.
“So I knew if I started crying, I would be done. I knew if I cried, that would have been it for me.”
Kennedy said she remembered the Good Samaritans who had stumbled across the dramatic scene holding a white tarp underneath her incase she fell, but she ‘didn’t understand’ what they were doing at the time.
She continued: “I was like, ‘Can you guys just come and get me?’
“I was confused why they were all just looking at me and not helping me,” she explained. “So a lot of confusion, scared, yeah I don’t know. It was interesting.”
Kennedy said she experiences flashbacks when she sees the flashing lights or hears the sirens of emergency service vehicles, adding that she ‘hates’ them.
“Sometimes those almost bring me to tears because it just makes me sick,” she said.
“When I hit about 60mph and higher, I start to freak out. That gives me flashbacks.”
Featured Image Credit: Kennedy News and Media/YouTube/KennedyLittledike
Topics: Health, News, US News, YouTube, Mental Health, Sex and Relationships
A woman who was in a horrific car crash and ended up dangling from some power lines by a broken leg says it actually saved her life.
In 2021, Idaho teenager Kennedy Littledike was driving home with two friends in the car when she lost control of the vehicle and hit a power pole.
Kennedy was thrown out of her car and left dangling from a power line 30ft in the air by her broken leg for an hour before she could be rescued and rushed to hospital.
In the end, her injuries were so severe that she had to be placed in a medical coma and her leg was amputated, while she also suffered partial paralysis in one of her arms.
Kennedy News and Media
She was worried that her injuries would mean she’d never find love but she’s since ended up in the ‘happiest relationship’ with a new boyfriend.
At the time of the crash, Kennedy had only just broken up with her previous partner and ‘was still kind of a wreck’, leading two of her best friends to try and cheer her up.
“I started crying and I lost control of the vehicle. I started going off the left side of the road and I overcorrected too far and went off the right side of the road,” she said of her crash and ordeal.
“My car went down a little bit into the ditch and I then hit a power pole. My side of the vehicle hit the pole and it flipped us sideways. We started flipping and rolling. I was the first one out of my door because it was torn off.
Kennedy News and Media
“When I was ejected I was left hanging on a power line 30 ft up, upside down.
“I remember I started to cry but I knew I couldn’t cry because if I were to cry I was going to die. I pulled myself together.
“My memory then fades out again and comes back to a tonne of people underneath me. I was up there for an hour and I was hanging by my broken leg.”
She remembered that the only time she ‘cried and screamed’ was when the emergency services put a tourniquet on her and ‘had to take my bone back from the wire’.
The teen explained that she felt ‘a sense of relief’ once she was on the stretcher as she ‘didn’t have to fight anymore’ after spending an hour hanging from a wire by her broken leg.
Kennedy News and Media
Her dad had to break the news to her that her leg had been amputated, and Kennedy said she was ‘glad I was the only one’ as she blamed herself for the crash.
As odd as it sounds, her being stuck on the power line actually saved her life, as the main artery in her leg was pinched off by it and the main one in her arm was cauterised when she was electrocuted by the line.
Without landing on the power line, she could have died from blood loss before help arrived, or from further injuries sustained by landing back on the ground instead of hanging from a wire 30ft high.
Featured Image Credit: Kennedy News and Media
Warning: This article graphic contains images which some readers may find distressing
A woman who was left with no forehead for two years spoke out about the dangers of putting your feet on the dashboard.
Gráinne Kealy was just 22 when her boyfriend’s car skidded on some black ice and hit a wall.
And since her feet were resting on the dashboard over the airbag, they were forced back into her head, breaking almost every bone in her face.
Speaking to LADbible about the crash, which took place on 16 December 2006, Gráinne said: “My boyfriend at the time was driving us through Borris-in-Ossory in County Laois to do a bit of Christmas shopping and I had my feet on the dashboard.
Gráinne Kealy
“It wasn’t something I normally did, but I had new shoes on so I knew I wouldn’t leave dirty marks on the dashboard.
“My feet were on top of the airbag and, I know now, they inflate at 200mph. The force of that meant my knees were sent back into my face really powerfully.
“I broke nearly every bone in my face. I had a brain leak [called a CSF (Cerebrospinal Fluid)] and I lost two teeth.”
Gráinne and her boyfriend were rushed to hospital where she underwent surgery to fix the leak on her brain and the fractures to her face.
However, just a few months later, it was discovered that Gráinne had an infection in the bone in her forehead.
Medics were forced to remove it in 2007, leaving Gráinne without a forehead for two years.
“It took a while to slowly go down,” she explained. “It wasn’t like I suddenly woke up and it was sunken in. It took a while, which probably helped me get used to it.
“For a long time, I was afraid to leave the house. I became a bit of a hermit.
“I didn’t want to go out and then when I did go out, I would get looks. I bought hats to cover it. I was also worried about banging my head.”
Gráinne Kealy
But in June 2009, surgeons at Beaumont Hospital managed to reconstruct Gráinne’s face by fitting a ceramic forehead.
She continued: “It was strange. I’m aware of it, but I can’t really remember what it was like before I had it.
“Since it was first fitted, I’ve had fat taken from my stomach and injected either side of it to plump it out because you could see the edges.”
As well as undergoing numerous surgeries directly related to the crash, Gráinne says that the accident triggered a sort of ‘domino effect’, leading to more problems and issues.
Recovering from her acquired brain injury wasn’t as easy as some people might think.
“I ended up with gallstones because of the medication I was on and I have near-constant headaches. There seems to be a different problem every year,” she said.
“I know people have it much worse off than me and I’m so grateful for the treatment I’ve received, but it’s hard to move on when it’s still ongoing for me. I think in total I’ve had 16 procedures and surgeries.”
Gráinne, who has a son, spoke out to warn others about sitting with their feet up while being a passenger in a car.
Gráinne Kealy
She concluded: “You see it all the time. Celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Conor McGregor and Selena Gomez have all posted photos to their Instagram with their feet on the dashboard.
“They have billions of followers who see that. You see it in films and on TV, it’s everywhere.
“I just want to warn others about how dangerous it can be. I didn’t know – and some people say to me ‘how could you have been so stupid?’ but I honestly didn’t realise it could be so dangerous.
“I thought because I was wearing a seatbelt and was sat up properly in the car, I was safe.
“I want people to learn from my mistake.”
Featured Image Credit: Gráinne Kealy/Hero Images Inc/Alamy Stock Photo
A carjacker who severely wounded a great-grandmother has died in a car crash shortly after stealing her vehicle.
According to The Police Tribune, 71-year-old San Antonian Shirlene Hernandez was going about her usual routine of picking up a Diet Coke from a petrol station when the thief approached her.
The man hit her in the face several times and ripped the keys from her hands, before driving off with her car.
Following the carjacking, police found the car on the interstate highway, but it was totalled. The suspected carjacker’s body was found inside.
Hernandez, who was left severely injured after the incident, told KABB: “There’s a lot of people who would say what goes around comes around, karma. I did not think that; the only thing I got (was) really sad because he had died.
KABB/WOAI/CNN
“Now granted, he had hurt me, but the Lord saw fit to take him out of his misery.”
She hopes her story will urge good Samaritans to step forward and help out whenever they see trouble unfold.
“I just hope that if this situation happens to anybody else, that somebody will step forward, leap forward, run forward, whatever and help the person that it’s happening to,” she said.
Despite being shaken by the experience, the great-grandmother isn’t letting the crime shape her life as she continues to work while saving for another car.
“I realised – I don’t have a car,” she said. “I just don’t want to quit working and so I’ve got to somehow get another car and that takes money and stuff. I’ve got to figure out what to do.”
A GoFundMe has been launched by her granddaughter to help her purchase a vehicle so she could get to ‘work or appointments’.
gofundme.com
It read: “Hi, my name is Helen, and I am helping my 71-year-old grandma Shirlene. On April 12th, she was carjacked from a Shell station in San Antonio on her way to work. The man who took her car hit her with the door, badly bruising her face.
“The man wrecked her car and totaled it, leaving her without a way to get to work or appointments. Any donation helps get her back on her feet and is greatly appreciated.”
More than 500 donations have poured in, surpassing the initial goal of US $5,000 with over $20,000 worth of funds raised so far.
Looks like Mrs Hernandez might even be on her way to indulging in a Bentley.
Featured Image Credit: KABB/WOAI/CNN