Over three years ago, on January 31, 2015, Ally Grizzard’s life would change forever when she was taking her 6-week-old puppy, Lilly, to the vet.
“All I remember is seeing a hay truck coming at me,” said Grizzard. “We were going 55 miles per hour and I saw him coming at me head-on, in my lane.”
An aspiring nurse from Carrollton, Georgia, she swerved to miss the truck, but her car flipped over and she was thrown for yards onto the ground.
“I took my last breath,” she recalls. “They had to do compressions and bring me back in the helicopter.”
“All of my spine was just shattered.”
Later at the hospital, Ally wrote her mother a note saying, “My nursing career is over.” Her mother, Lisa, asked her why and she said: “because I can’t feel my legs.” Ally was paralyzed from the waist down.
Doctors told Ally that she had a small window of time in which she could get stronger through physical therapy. Ally responded like a fighter. She took as much therapy as she could, working on her upper body strength from a wheelchair. Then she started working to help others facing rehabilitation.
While fighting to recover, her boyfriend of six months, Amos, stayed by her side. Despite what happened, their relationship only grew stronger, and they fell in love. Their love grew for two years, and then Amos asked Ally to marry him on Valentine’s Day last year. Their puppy, Lilly, who had survived the accident, carried the engagement ring.
Lilly carries the ring via YouTube
The night of her engagement, Ally had already made up her mind: She would walk down the aisle. She had dreamed of doing so as a little girl, and she wasn’t about to let anything stop her.
“The night that we got engaged, I texted my therapist with a picture and said, ‘Are you ready to train me to walk down the aisle?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, let’s do this.’”
After three years of intense and grueling therapy, Ally shared the outcome on her Instagram account. She had triumphantly reached her goal, with help from her father and stepfather who helped her with each difficult step of the 50 foot walk up a slightly inclined grassy hill.
“My walk down the aisle in my leg braces was nothing short of exhausting. It was my very first time walking across grass and uphill in the braces and so difficult that I started to doubt myself. But I did it.”
“I accomplished my goal and I also got my husband at the end of it!”
Now the new bride says she hopes her story will be inspiriing for every girl who dreams of taking their own walk down the aisle someday.
“I hope my walk inspires every girl who dreams of her own wedding day and dreams of her walk down the aisle. Even if you have to do it a little different than someone else would and in your own little way, you can still have your special day an still make your walk down the aisle that you’ve dreamed about all your life as long as you do not give up.”
See more in the video from 11Alive below:
Featured image: Screenshot via Instagram/Ally Grizzard