Ashley Taunton was driving south on I-95 in Rhode Island on July 18 when she saw three teenagers in trouble after their car hydroplaned.
Her youngest daughter was with her, and when Taunton pulled over, she told her daughter to stay back and call her dad and went to help.
When another vehicle hydroplaned toward the group, Taunton pushed 19-year-old Vinny O’Rourke out of its path and was struck herself.
The damage was brutal; Taunton suffered dissections in both internal carotid arteries, lacerations to her liver and spleen, multiple broken ribs, and a ruptured diaphragm.
From People.com:
About 30 yards from the scene of the crash, she got out of the car, telling her daughter to stay back and call her dad.
As she made her way to the stranded vehicle, she saw a driver and two other passengers, all of whom were teenagers.
“I went over there and [they] were getting out of the car,” she recalls. “They were a little bit banged up, but seemed relatively okay.”
As Taunton spoke with the teens, another vehicle that had hydroplaned came barreling toward them.
According to an official crash report Taunton shared with PEOPLE, the driver lost control of the vehicle, which was traveling in the second lane of I-95 South, because the road conditions were wet and slippery.
She spent 30 days in the hospital and underwent three surgeries. Doctors have said her recovery could take up to a year.
Yet when people call her a hero, Taunton answers, “I’m just a mom. Somebody was hurting. That’s just what you do.”
Then Taylor Swift noticed. On Aug. 28, Swift donated $50,000 to the GoFundMe to help Taunton, her husband Joe, and their three children manage expenses while she recovers.
From NBC:
Ashley Taunton has documented her recovery on social media, sharing photos from her hospital bed while in an induced coma, with a nasogastric tube for a small bowel obstruction, staples on her stomach, and — more recently — back home in a leg brace.
On Friday, she posted on Instagram about Swift’s donation, writing: “This is absolutely mind-blowing and so very humbling.”
“@taylorswift you are a beautiful soul I wish I could hug you IRL. Maybe the next time your in Westerly 😘 I live 20 minutes away 🫶 Thank you Jesus for so many amazing humans. This is unbelievable and I am overwhelmed with gratitude. To God be the glory!” she wrote.
Swift also left a brief message wishing Taunton the best recovery possible and sending love to her family.
It was generous, personal, and useful.
In terms of mileage, I’m roughly 139 years old, so Swiftmania mostly passes me by. I know Travis Kelce, I recognize some songs, and I also remember the national suspense over whether Swift would endorse a presidential candidate in 2024. She eventually endorsed Kackles Harris in September.
I didn’t.
Unbelievably, somehow we’ve both carried on.
Conservatives lose nothing by giving her credit here. Disagreeing with somebody’s politics doesn’t require pretending every good thing she does suddenly becomes invisible.
Apparently, modern politics now demands complete personality audits before anyone is allowed to say, “Good for her.”
I decline.
Swift didn’t have to give Taunton $50,000. She chose to, and she deserves applause for it. But celebrity shouldn’t swallow the woman whose courage created the story.
Taunton didn’t know when she stepped onto that rain-soaked highway that Vinny was the son of Jamie O’Rourke, a longtime friend. She learned the connection later. In the moment, he was simply a young man in danger, and she moved him.
Her husband described the rescue on the fundraiser site with four perfect words:
“Ashley doing Ashley things.”
Taylor Swift deserves credit for seeing courage and putting real money behind her concern. Ashley Taunton deserves something more lasting: she saw strangers in danger, nearly died helping them, endured surgeries and a month in the hospital, then insisted she merely was a mom doing what people do.
I’ll disagree with Ashley on one thing: she’s a hero.
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