Teenager left hanging by broken leg on power line after car crash shares sobering new images five years later
Teenage Kennedy Bingham was left hanging from a power line after suffering a life-changing accident just five years ago.
Two days after a break-up, the Idaho local was convinced by her friends to head up a nearby mountain for a hike and to park the car at the base.
On the way home, however, something caused Kennedy to cry and she lost control of the car which caused the vehicle to flip and roll over.
Kennedy and her two friends didn't have their seatbelts on and were thrown out of the vehicle.
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"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," she previously told Inside Edition.
"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."
She was left hanging 30 feet in the air from a power line by her broken leg for nearly an hour before emergency crews could rescue her.
"I remember I was drowning in my blood because it was running from my leg, it was running from my arm, and it was going in my nose, and I was just wiping it out because it was literally drowning me," Kennedy recalled.
"I didn’t know what to do in that situation," she added. "I felt so helpless. And I remember I started to cry, and I remember telling myself, ‘If you cry, you’re done,’ like ‘This is the end for you.’"
Her arm was nearly torn off, her femur snapped over the wire and she endured extensive electrical injuries.
Doctors later diagnosed Kennedy with a severe brachial plexus injury after nerves were ripped from her spine, leaving her arm permanently paralysed.
She underwent 21 surgeries and eventually had her leg amputated after repeated attempts to save it failed.
'I knew I could do it'
Despite unimaginable difficulties, Kennedy is now a motivational speaker and inspiration to her followers online.
The content creator has recently completed a HYROX fitness race, which involves both running and functional workout stations, while wearing her running blade after six months of training.
"I knew it was really scary, and I knew it was gonna push myself more than anything I probably could’ve chose," she told PEOPLE. "But I knew I could do it."
Kennedy, who competed in a November relay race alongside her husband, continued: "The training was honestly the worst part.
"I was like, ‘I’m so tired of going to train, running and sled… the same thing every day.’ It got really draining."
'Choose your hard'
Revealing that running 'was probably the hardest part', she added: "It just gets so sweaty that [the prosthetic] will literally completely fall off. And so that gets really frustrating when you’re trying to hit your goal."
While planning to do another HYROX, Kennedy said she 'would go through it all again just to have that rewarding feeling and feeling like I made a difference in someone's life'.
Opening up on her decision to document her experience, she told PEOPLE: "The whole point of sharing it… is to help others be like, ‘Oh, I can go do something really hard’.
"Like, I am capable."
Kennedy went on to say: "Choose your hard. You do you and go push yourself… go have a good life."
Topics: US News, Social Media
Anish Vij