'Miracle' Mom Wakes from 5-Year Coma Thanks to Joke — Now She’s Making Up for Lost Time with Sons (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Jennifer Flewellen and her mom, Peggy Means.Photo:Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation

Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation

It’s a miracle — and it all started with a joke.

“When she woke up, it scared me at first because she was laughing and she had never done that,” Means tells PEOPLE. “Every dream came true. Today’s the day I said, ‘That door that was closed, that kept us apart, had just opened. We were back.'”

The August 2022 breakthrough was just the first step in a long battle for Flewellen, who is working hard to regain her speech and mobility after being in a cocoon state where time ceased as her brain slowly healed.  AGoFundMe campaignhas been started to help buy a handicap van and home remodels.

“This is so rare,” Dr. Ralph Wang, her physician at Michigan’sMary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital, tells PEOPLE. “Not just waking up, but making progress. Maybe 1-2% of patients wake up and make progress this far out.”

The feisty mom reached another big goal in October when she was able to participate in a senior night football celebration with youngest son Julian, 17, at a Niles High School football game.

“She was my biggest supporter,” says Julian, who was 11 when his mom fell into a coma. “So to have my biggest supporter back on the sidelines cheering me on, it was a surreal moment."

Jennifer Means with her friend Cassie Lee and sons, left to right, Skylar, Julian and Daeton.Peggy Means

Peggy Means

After news hit about her attending her son’s football game, Flewellen was able to secure additional therapy throughMary Free Bed, a local rehabilitation hospital.

In a PEOPLE video interview with her mom from the rehabilitation hospital, an animated Flewellen, who can only string a few words together, nods yes and no to questions and sits up almost straight in a portable hospital bed.

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Flewellen’s nightmare-turned-miracle began with a typical morning on Monday, Sept. 25, 2017. Then a 35-year-old wife and mother of three young boys in the small town of Niles, Flewellen had just dropped off her three sons at school and was heading to work at Bittersweet Pet Resorts.

It was the last typical morning she would have.  At 8:23 a.m., she hit a utility pole, according to anews reportfrom local radio station WSJM. (Neither speed nor alcohol appeared to be factors in the crash that left her unresponsive.)

Jennifer Flewellen at son Julian’s high school varsity football game with (from left) brother Kyle, friend Cassie Lee, son Julian and mom Peggy Means.Peggy Means

When it finally happened, Means recorded the moment and quickly sent the video to family and friends. The next day, Julian and his brothers went to the hospital.

“I told her I was Juju and her eyes lit up like, ‘Wow, it’s my Juju bean,'" Julian says, noting his nickname. “But when she actually found out our ages and things like that, it broke her heart. She started to cry.”

Julian says it wasn’t easy for his mom to learn he was a junior and that his brothers Skylar, now 21, and Daeton, 19, had already graduated from high school.

“We’ve talked about the time that she’s missed, and we try not to, because it makes her upset,” Julian says. “But my grandma always tells her, ‘You can’t sit here and be sad because being sad is not going to get you moving forward.'"

A Christmas when Jenn Flewellen’s boys were young.Peggy Means

Although Flewellen wasn’t aware of her mom’s near-daily visits, Means says that her during her daughter’s recovery, she played her an audio book about a woman who had been in a coma and described it as a euphoric, peaceful and calming place.

“Jenn cried and said that’s how she felt, so that was nice to know,” Means says. “There were times I wanted to believe she knew I was there, but something just told me this was what I’ve got to do.”

At first, most friends and family didn’t believe Means when she said her daughter had come out of the coma. Worse, she says, were the hospital staff who didn’t think Flewellen would progress much past simply waking up.

“I asked for therapy and they thought I was crazy, but she got speech therapy,” says the persistent mom.“You have to be a strong advocate,” she adds.

Jenn Flewellen with her cat Huey.Peggy Means

At first Flewellen couldn’t make a sound, but with the help of a little whistle, she was able to bring air up.

Next were vowels. Last Christmas, while her daughter was still living at the hospital, Means gave Flewellen a kitty named Huey “because it was vowels,” Means says with a smile as her daughter also grins.

This is just the beginning of Flewellen’s new, post-coma life. Even though she still needs assistance in “almost everything,” Dr. Wang says she’s already exceeded expectations.

Jennifer Flewellen doing her bike exercises at Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital.Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation

“If she can take a few steps, feed herself and communicate more, those would be huge wins,” Wang says. “Both she and her mom are wonderfully driven. In six months, if she was a 10 before, if we can get her to a four or five. That would be tremendous.”

Means believes her daughter — whose family has launched aGoFundMeto cover recovery expenses — will be walking soon and making up time with her boys.

When she’s told that she looks ready to take on the world, Flewellen replies, “I am.”

source: people.com