Everything changed in a matter of seconds for Jasmine Helfrich on June 25.

Helfrich, a junior at Powell High School, is recovering from an all-terrain vehicle accident that evening just north of town that temporarily left her paralyzed and has her in the midst of a long road of recovery and rehabilitation.

Jasmine was riding an all-terrain vehicle with some friends north of Powell when they got stuck in the mud. While the tires were spinning, the ATV rolled over and dropped Helfrich and her friends in an irrigation canal.

Jasmine’s helmet was too large and when she landed in the water, it broke her C2 vertebra — what is commonly known as a hangman’s fracture — and also dislodged the disk between her C2 and C3 vertebrae. She was unconscious and unable to move and lying face-down in the canal. Her friends got her out of the canal and performed CPR, saving her life.

From there, first responders transported her to to Powell Valley Hospital. Jasmine was originally slated to be sent to Billings, Montana, but when medical personnel realized there was no pediatric neurosurgeon there, she was flown to Children’s Hospital in Aurora, Colorado, that evening.

“She started completely paralyzed [after the accident], except for her right leg,” said Dejah Helfrich, Jasmine’s mother. After that, “She was in a sip-and-puff wheelchair that uses your breath to make it move. She went from there to a hand-drive wheelchair to a manual wheelchair to a walker to now, a single crutch,” Dejah Helfrich said.

Jasmine underwent surgery two days after the accident, where she had a plate and four screws attached to her C2 vertebra. She was in Children’s Hospital for two weeks, then spent eight more weeks at Craig Hospital in Englewood, Colorado, doing rehabilitation.

“It was very difficult,” Jasmine said. “I had to learn how to walk again, to feed myself again and to get dressed. I’m still learning how to wash my hair and do my hair, and reach my arms up. It was a workout.”

Dejah Helfrich credits Children’s Hospital and Craig Hospital for their treatment of her daughter.

“I give the highest praise to Children’s for their quick work on her surgery and Craig for all of her rehabilitation,” she said.

Jasmine returned home to Powell earlier this month, and on Monday, Sept. 10, she was back in class at Powell High School. That has been a bit of adjustment, Jasmine said.

“It’s really nerve-wracking,” Jasmine said. “A lot of people stare and there are still a bunch of people that don’t know what happened. Everybody asks what happened, says that they’re sorry. It’s nerve-wracking because there’s a bunch of people around me.”

However, rejoining the PHS choir — which is now learning songs for an October concert — has been therapeutic, Jasmine said.

“It’s better than being in the hospital because it’s what I love to do,” she said. “It’s not as scary when I’m singing than when I’m not.”

Another source of strength and encouragement for Jasmine has been family and friends. Her best friend, Jada Woodward, made the trip to Colorado to visit while Jasmine was in the hospital, as have several others.

“I just know that just with the overwhelming prayers of this community and as strong as she is, without all of that, there’s no way she’d be where she is today,” Dejah Helfrich said, adding that financial support from others has enabled her to take time off work to be with Jasmine.

Lanette Fetzer has also been there for her granddaughter and daughter, including making three trips to Colorado.

“It hasn’t been as hard for me as it has for these two, but I had the other two kids [Jasmine’s siblings] all summer,” Fetzer said, adding, “It was kind of a long summer ... I just tried to keep the fires burning here.”

Jasmine is still doing physical therapy and occupational therapy through Powell Valley Healthcare and “just trying to get to the way I was before the accident,” she said.

With a long journey of rehabilitation and recovery still ahead, Jasmine’s family is hosting a pair of benefits to help with her expenses (see box).

“The people around town have been very generous about making up baskets and just really being concerned,” Fetzer said. “A lot of people didn’t know up till this day what happened. Everybody’s mouth drops open.”

As Jasmine continues on the road to recovery, one lesson from this summer stands out to Dejah Helfrich:

“Never take any second for granted,” she said, “because … it happened in a second.”