Taylor Swift came to the aid of a hero mom, giving $50,000 to a GoFundMe set up for her as she recovers following her selfless act of helping others.
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Ashley Taunton, a 42-year-old nursing assistant, was gravely injured back in July. The mom of three was driving on I-95 South in Rhode Island when she noticed a car full of teens in distress on a rainy day.
“When I see there’s somebody in trouble, I tend to want to go help,” she told PEOPLE of the incident last week.
After pulling over and telling one of her daughters to call her husband, Taunton stepped up to the vehicle. She noted that the three teenagers inside were “a little bit banged up, but seemed relatively okay.”
However, while she was assisting the shaken teens, another vehicle hydroplaned, racing toward Taunton and one of the teen victims. In a heroic act of selflessness, the brave mom pushed the teen out of the way of the oncoming car, taking the brunt of the hit herself.
“It just felt like a big explosion,” Taunton recalled to PEOPLE. “I just remember being on the ground, and I could see my ankle was just hanging there; I went to try to get up and I couldn’t breathe.”
She “knew I had internal bleeding,” Taunton added. “I thought, ‘That was it.’ Then in the ambulance as well, I was just praying…I didn’t want to die.”
According to PEOPLE, Taunton had a host of severe injuries, including “bilateral internal carotid artery dissection, liver and spleen lacerations, multiple rib fractures and a ruptured diaphragm.”
Friends set up a GoFundMe to “take the financial burden off [her husband] Joe and the kids so their only focus can be on her.”
Taylor Swift Helps Hero Mom
Perhaps after seeing the PEOPLE story, Taylor Swift was moved to donate to the fundraiser. The “So High School” singer quietly donated $50K.
As of this writing, the GoFundMe has raised over $76,000.
Meanwhile, the near-death experience gave Taunton a fresh outlook on life.
“Life is very busy and it’s easy to postpone plans like, especially with friends and loved ones,” she told PEOPLE. “I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to make sure that I am taking time, even if it’s just going to grab a coffee with a friend, because we never know how you’re going to leave this earth.”