WAUKESHA, Wis. (CBS 58) — Jessalyn Torres was strolling with Waukesha’s Xtreme Dance Team within the Waukesha Christmas Parade final yr when a automobile barreled via the parade. Torres was hit within the chest and spent weeks within the hospital. She suffered a damaged pelvis in three locations, a fractured cranium, misplaced a kidney, and had inside bleeding. 

She spent weeks within the hospital, and since being discharged in December she’s been out and in of surgical procedure. 

Torres and her mother, Amber Kohnke, sat down with CBS 58 to speak about how the assault modified their lives ceaselessly. 

“It’s been a very rough couple of months,” stated Kohnke. “She wants to be normal, she wants to be 11 years old.” 

This picture under exhibits how Torres’ day began, smiling and able to stroll together with her mates and teammates within the parade. 

The method it ended was not what anybody anticipated that day. Torres was combating for her life. 

Quite a lot of issues have been taken from Torres that day. She nonetheless struggles with fixed ache when standing for lengthy intervals of time and subsequent month, she heads into her sixth surgical procedure since leaving the hospital. 

“This past weekend I had my first sleepover with my cousin. They live where I would have to walk upstairs and I got the OK to do stairs. and so I got to have a sleepover, which I did a lot before this whole thing.” 

It’s issues like that that Torres hasn’t been capable of do as she spends time studying the way to use her muscle groups once more. She not too long ago began strolling with out a walker, a giant step in only a few months. Her mother even shared a video of her doing one in all her favourite issues: dance.

Torres’ most up-to-date surgical procedure was on her trachea; constructed up scar tissue is increase, making it laborious to breath. 

“Last time her trachea closed off…over 60% was closed off,” stated Kohnke. “The time before that it was the size of a straw that she was trying to breath through.”

Torres goes again in for one more surgical procedure on her trachea on March 11, 2022. 

“At first when we got home I didn’t want my mom to leave me because she never left me in the hospital,” stated Torres.

The household of six contains Kohnke and her 5 youngsters, they usually have discovered to embrace one another extra via all of it.

“We communicate better. There’s just so much more of a feeling of love and involvement and that’s probably the greatest thing that’s come out of this,” stated Kohnke. “I know, it’s crazy to say! It’s great that everybody is willing to be amazing with each other.”

There’s extra laughing and goofiness of their days, however the hardest instances will not be behind them, together with many lengthy days of bodily remedy. 

“PT is hard. We’re working muscles that we used to work, that we haven’t been able to. And there’s mental breakdowns and there’s days when we need to cry and be frustrated, and I get it; and I’ll be by her side,” stated Kohnke.

Torres says the primary time going again downtown was laborious, however she tried a second time and it is getting simpler. It’s a spot she has extra good recollections than dangerous. 

“I really like being downtown, I think it’s really pretty down there. In the summer me and my siblings would ride out bikes down there,” stated Torres. “I think I’ve gotten through a lot of trauma or anxiety of being downtown.” 

Torres is in class three hours a day proper now in order that she will be able to sustain with bodily remedy.