Munhall Woman To Receive Come Back Award After 2010 Accident
MUNHALL (KDKA) - She was an Air Force veteran who served our nation for four years.
In July of 2010, a Munhall woman's life was changed when she was hit by a car less than a mile from her home.
Tonight, she will be receive a big honor.
Kimberly Puryear's comeback story starts in Munhall as she rode her bike along 16th Avenue. She was heading up a grade and never expected someone to be coming the wrong way on a one way street and crash into her.
"All I heard was the roar, and we met like right here, and that's all that I remember. They said she hit me and my body went up to the wires -- the cable wires -- and I landed over here somewhere," Puryear said.
Puryear was hit by an uninsured driver. She spent three months in a hospital, more in a nursing home and deals with pain every day.
"I was going to lose my eye. I was going to lose my leg. My skull was split so they weren't sure what kind of abilities I was going to have if I came to," Puryear said.
Tonight at the dinner at the Duquesne Club, Puryear will receive the Comeback Award.
It's a comeback she said she never would have made without her Christian faith.
"There's a point when there's no mother, no father, no family. no friends. When the doctor comes in and says 'I'm sorry, there is nothing else I can do,' you need something bigger than you," she said.
Five surgeries later and a couple more still to come, she can walk short distances, and she can drive again.
While the pain persists, she works to improve even when returning to the crash location in her neighborhood.
"I'll never forget. I'll never forget, but life goes on. There's [going to] be a whole lot of people who pass by here and not know what happened here, but I'll know," she said.
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