Struck by a drunk driver and left with part of her leg missing, Jessica Aguilar says running—pushed by her daughter—has helped her regain confidence as she races the RBC Brooklyn Half this weekend.
BROOKLYN has a way of turning ordinary sidewalks into stages.. This weekend. that truth lands with extra weight for Jessica Aguilar. who will toe the line of the RBC Brooklyn Half with an “ultimate goal” of finishing and seeing her daughter run alongside the changes that brought her back to the sport.
Aguilar’s return is rooted in a night that shattered her body and her expectations. In December 2022, after a night out with friends, she was struck by a truck that dragged her 40 feet. She lost 7% of her right leg.
“I had three emergency surgeries. I had reconstruction surgery. I had skin graft and I had to learn how to walk again,” Aguilar said.
Those injuries came with blunt medical uncertainty. She was told she wasn’t going to run again, and she remembers the impact of concrete as something her body could not withstand. “I gave up on it for years,” she said. “And it’s just a life I accepted for myself at the time.”
Running had once been her certainty. Aguilar started as a sophomore in high school, the habit that helped pull her through college and shaped her plans long before the accident arrived.
The turnaround, she says, began at home. After her daughter saw pictures of Aguilar running in college, she pushed for something that sounded, to her daughter, like a simple next step. The child suggested signing Aguilar up for a half marathon that would raise money for her school.
“She’s like, ‘Mom, you can do this,’” Aguilar said. “She didn’t really understand the concept that I couldn’t, so I didn’t want to show her no, I didn’t want to back down on something that she wanted me to do.”
What her daughter offered wasn’t just encouragement. It changed the way Aguilar looked at the sport itself. Running, she said, became something she approached as a privilege rather than a right.
As she began signing up for New York Road Runners races, Aguilar found a community that helped her keep going without losing the personal story behind the training. “They have created a space for me to race in a way that I get to tell my story,” she said.
This weekend, she’s running for more than a finish line. Aguilar describes her daughter as the reason her mindset shifted, and she ties her comeback to the person she’s trying to be now.
“I’m a better mom to my daughter because of it,” Aguilar said. “And now she has this mother who has shown her what resilience looks like and like not to give up, especially if something we love to do.”
The RBC Brooklyn Half is set for this weekend, and reports from the race course Saturday morning will be shared on Eyewitness News.
RBC Brooklyn Half Jessica Aguilar running comeback disabled athlete drunk driver New York Road Runners Brooklyn Half Marathon