{"id":96663,"date":"2018-12-17T18:10:14","date_gmt":"2018-12-18T01:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/despite-paralysis-and-heartbreak-durangoan-finds-joy\/"},"modified":"2018-12-17T18:10:14","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T01:10:14","slug":"despite-paralysis-and-heartbreak-durangoan-finds-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/despite-paralysis-and-heartbreak-durangoan-finds-joy\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite paralysis and heartbreak, Durangoan finds joy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Jessica
Jessica Vought was paralyzed from the waist down and also received a traumatic brain injury as the result of a car crash in 1999. Since then she has faced other challenges, but never lost her joy.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Life hasn\u2019t been easy for Durangoan Jessica Vought: She lost the use of her legs in a car crash and parted ways with two husbands. But life\u2019s punches have not stolen her joy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis girl has never once, since I met her \u2013 never, ever, ever \u2013 has had a pity party,\u201d said her friend, Lynn Dearey.<\/p>\n

Vought, 35, grew up in an abusive home with alcoholic parents. She describes herself as a \u201clost kid.\u201d<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t follow the rules and hung out with the wrong crowd as a high school student in Ignacio.<\/p>\n

But she was also a rising volleyball star, a sport she discovered and loved as a freshman.<\/p>\n

Then, at the end of her sophomore year, in May 1999, she rode in a car with a drunken driver who crashed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey found the car on top of me and my best friend at that time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Vought, who was 16, was in a coma for two months and woke up with a brain injury. She was paralyzed from the waist down. The driver of the car was also paralyzed, and her best friend died in the crash.<\/p>\n

\"Jessica
Jessica Vought makes greeting cards in her Durango apartment. Vought was paralyzed 19 years ago in a car crash after getting in a vehicle with a drunk driver.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

When she woke up from the coma, she realized she didn\u2019t have God in her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt hit me like a ton of bricks,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The day she woke up she became a Christian, and that has been her source of joy ever since, she said.<\/p>\n

In the 19 years since the crash, Vought has been invited to share her story with Durango High School students and others. She always welcomes opportunities to try to prevent drunken driving, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love passing on what\u2019s happened to me to save a life or allow one of (the students) to notice something and to save one of their friend\u2019s lives,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But life\u2019s cruel turns weren\u2019t done with Vought. Her first marriage of seven years ended after she discovered her husband was having multiple affairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had fun. We had life, until things came up to the surface,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

After she found out about his affairs, she left him a note and moved out of the house they shared, she said.<\/p>\n

Her friend, Noah Vought, who also used a wheelchair, helped Jessica with the move.<\/p>\n

She met Noah while working in the podiatrist\u2019s office where he was patient.<\/p>\n

\"Jessica
Jessica Vought with her friend in her Durango apartment. Vought was a rising high school volleyball star and still enjoys watching the game.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Shortly after the divorce papers came through from her first marriage, she married Noah.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just had to look at him and you were dewy on the floor,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The two were married for almost nine years and were largely homebodies, although they went to the Bar-D-Wranglers about 10 times each summer.<\/p>\n

They mainly played games, watched movies, studied the Bible and saved up for their rare vacations.<\/p>\n

The two visited Disney World twice, once for 39 days and again for 49 days.<\/p>\n

They took long vacations, in part, because it took such a long time to pack all their equipment and drive to their destination.<\/p>\n

In May 2017, Noah died from a blood clot that went to his lungs that was related to his other health conditions, and Vought had to reframe a life that had been built around her marriage.<\/p>\n

Vought, who had not attended a church regularly, visited The River Church in Durango for the first time in August last year and met new friends, including Dearey, who has encouraged her to get out more.<\/p>\n

But the challenges keep coming. Last year, Vought had to have her right foot amputated because of reoccurring sores. She was also diagnosed with celiac disease, a condition that makes it impossible to eat gluten, which is a protein in wheat, rye and barley.<\/p>\n

Through it all, Vought has stayed positive because of her faith, Dearey said.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is the most amazing individual I have ever met,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

mshinn@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jessica Vought draws from personal tragedy to warn others about dangers of drunken driving<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":96664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5843],"tags":[924,13,61,1142,3093],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-96663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-living","tag-alcohol","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-health","tag-profile","tag-wreck"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96663"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=96663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}