In May 2021, 17-year-old Kennedy Littledike was driving with two friends who wanted to cheer her up after a heartbreak. Their excursion ended with a freak car accident that launched Kennedy 30 feet up onto a power line. She hung by one of her legs, dangling helplessly, until the first responders arrived. Despite the horrific event, Kennedy has embraced her life with a prosthetic leg and shares her story on TikTok, where she has created a community that supports her while being inspired by her.
“I knew we were going to crash…”
On the night of the accident, Kennedy and her two friends, Nakia Molina and Jacob Rasmussen, were on their way to Kennedy’s house to pick up Jacob’s car. The three were planning to go to Jacob’s home to make crepes to cheer Kennedy up after a recent breakup and her father’s recent cancer diagnosis. As she was driving, Kennedy began crying although she wasn’t sure what exactly prompted the emotion. She accidentally veered to the side of the gravelly road and overcorrected. “Right when we started fishtailing, I knew we were going to crash,” explained Jacob, who was in the backseat, in a TikTok video.
The car started to slip into a ditch, hit a power pole, and flipped sideways. Jacob described falling out of the car as “going through a washing machine.” He opened his eyes to find himself in a field, bleeding heavily, and Kennedy hanging upside down over him. “And this is going to sound really bad, but the only thing I could think of was ‘oh my gosh, the blood is rushing to her head, she’s gonna pass out!’”
“I had come to peace with death”
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Up in the air, Kennedy hung by her leg where her femur had snapped until the paramedics came and rescued her. The power line pinched off the main artery in her leg and prevented her from bleeding out. Additionally, the electric shock cauterized the wound in her arm. “Once they got me on that stretcher there was a sense of relief that I didn’t have to fight anymore,” Kennedy said. “It wasn’t my job anymore, because I’d been fighting for an hour and I was tired. I couldn’t do it anymore and I really thought I had come to peace with death.”
“The pain in the hospital was unbelievable”
When she was finally rescued she had to endure over 21 surgeries for her broken femur, humerus, clavicle and brachial plexus injury. “The pain in the hospital was unbelievable. I don’t even know how to express it,” Littledike says. “The pain would subside, and then another pain would come. I struggle with the pain to this day, and that’s probably the most mentally wearing for me, to be in chronic pain.”
All three suffered injuries after being ejected from the car since none of them were wearing seatbelts. A neighbor heard Kennedy screaming from the power line. First responders found Nakia unconscious and Jacob severely bleeding but conscious.
Marlene Molina, Nakia’s mother, explained that her daughter suffered from a fracture in her neck, shattered vertebrae, dislocated ribs, four breaks in her pelvis, and a small brain bleed. Meanwhile, Jeff Rasmussen, the father of Jacob, said his son suffered a fractured vertebra in his neck, a broken pelvis, and a fracture in his back.
All the while, Kennedy endured several leg amputations. The doctors tried to save as much as the leg as possible, but they had to remove more and more of the limb due to infection. Her left arm was also severely damaged along with the nerves inside.
Miraculous recoveries
“The repair of her arm has been one of many miracles in this process,” Jared said. “Honestly, if you don’t believe in miracles, I don’t know what to tell you. Every doctor that has seen Kennedy says it’s a miracle she’s alive because her injuries are in the top five of the worst they have ever seen. It’s very rare that a person survives the injuries Kennedy experienced in this wreck.”
Fortunately, Jacob made a full recovery, and by 2022, he was back to playing sports “no pain, it’s awesome.” Nakia also reportedly made a full recovery. In a 2022 video where Jacob and Kennedy carved their initials into the pole that totaled the car, a follower asked where Nakia was. Kennedy replied, “She’s been doing her own thing for awhile now.”
An optimistic future
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“I actually had a pretty positive outlook on it, which was kind of weird because you would think I would be super depressed and sad about the whole situation,” Kennedy says in an interview with People. “Obviously, it’s hard. I hurt my two best friends, and I live with the guilt for that.” She explains that the guilt is more difficult than living with chronic pain, an amputated left, and semi-functioning arms.
She now has 416 thousand followers on TikTok, watching her journey. “I think the reason people keep following me is not even for the crazy story, but because of what I’ve accomplished through my outlook on life after everything that has happened to me.”
Despite her challenges, she challenges herself by doing physically-difficult things like rock climbing, skiing, and body surfing with her new prosthetic leg. Kennedy now works as a motivational speaker since “…I like sharing my story in person more because they [responses] are a lot kinder and you can see the impact it makes on them.” This Kennedy has gotten engaged to Alec Bingham.
Wear seatbelts
The shocking crash revealed the importance of seatbelts. In the past, Jeff had a seatbelt save his life in a car accident and has always told his kids to wear them, as did Marlene. However, Jeff laments not encouraging his children to wear them more.
“I’ll be honest with you, we were not a seatbelt family before this,” Jared said. “That was my failure as a father, but you just don’t think this (stuff) will ever happen to you. The crash was literally only about 3.5 miles from the house on a road they’ve driven hundreds of times before.”