It would normally be a death sentence for anyone unlucky enough to find themselves in her position. When Taylor Theirault found herself at a party in December of 2016, she had no reason to believe that her night would be anything but fun.
The 26-year-old woman was celebrating at a friend's apartment building, when she fell out of an open window. The apartment was a towering 15 floors straight up, and Theirault didn't even have time to consider that this was the end.
Luckily for her, something broke her fall. A snow-covered air-conditioning unit sticking out of the third floor was jutting out far enough for her to land on. Despite falling 12 stories onto the hard, metal machine, Theirault was still alive, and holding on.
When fire crews arrived, they were in shock that she was still on the AC unit. They didn't hesitate and carefully pulled her limp body safely to the ground.
They rushed her to the hospital where her real fight began.
Theirault lay in a hospital bed for a week, completely comatose. When she finally awoke, she was told that she had broken 26 bones, but more importantly, she was alive.
She was told that it was thanks to these firefighters acting quickly to make sure her injured body wasn't moved around too much, that she stayed alive long enough to get to the emergency room.
"They're the reason why I'm standing here," she said. "I mean, they help strangers out every day. I was just a stranger; the didn't even know my name, and they saved my life."
That wasn't the end of it, either. The same fire crew visited her in the hospital with another surprise, they offered to help her pay her medical bills.
This gave Theirault the determination to recover as soon as she could. Despite the terrible damage done to her body, she was able to walk only a year later.
"I can walk. They told me I wasn't going to be able to walk. They were not sure if I even would live," she said. "It's a miracle."
Her first act? To stand in front of the same people who never gave up on her, and thank them for their selflessness.
