Taxi Crash Survivor Tells Her Story

It’s a story that's both a mystery and a miracle. A taxi cab passenger is involved in a horrifying accident. Doctors said she'd never survive.

The fact that Joyce Kilburg is able to speak during our interview is nothing short of amazing to doctors and her family.

The taxi Joyce was riding in was involved in a horrifying accident. Doctors said she'd never survive.

The crash was last month on Chicago’s North Side. The driver escaped almost without injury, but Joyce wasn't supposed to make it.

"My arms are broken. It needs to be fixed” Joyce said. “My throat, it needs to be fixed."

Worst of all, she suffered a severe brain injury and fell into a coma.

"They asked did I want to pull her off life support," Husband Dan Kilburg said. “Her chance of survival they told me was like a drop of water in an ocean. They never thought she'd ever survive survive.”

"I have never seen anything like it, in twenty five years,” Dr. Richard Fantus of Advocate Illinois Medical Center said. “There’s no scientific explanation. It’s a miracle."

Now, a month-and-a-half later, Joyce is learning to walk again.

It all traces back to a fateful night in October. Joyce works for the Illinois Film Office and was attending the star-studded Chicago premiere for Vince Vaughn’s new movie.

After the event, Joyce hopped into a cab and according to witnesses, on North Sheridan Road, the cab sped up suddenly and crashed into a tree.

The taxi driver's story confirms what witnesses said about "sudden acceleration."

And he reportedly adds, the car wasn't responding to his braking.

"There are cases of sudden acceleration. We know there are cases out there,” Attorney Dan Kotin of Corboy & Demetrio tells Fox Chicago News.

The problem is, no one knows for sure what happened that night.

The "Vehicle Tracking Device," which is attached to the engine and records a car's every movement, has mysteriously disappeared.

Who would take it?

To the cab company, it's proof of their best defense. That it may have been the car not the driver.

Kotin calls it “The missing link."

"We know it was there, because the car wouldn't run without it," Kotin said.

As attorneys investigate, Joyce and her husband expect to spend the best Thanksgiving of their life together this year. Remembering that moment, when Joyce slipped out of a coma.
And it became clear, a miracle had happened.

Read the Kilburg Complaint (PDF) at Corboy & Demetrio's web site .

We made several attempts to get a comment from Checker cab, with no response. If the vehicle recorder isn't found, another suit may be filed against the cab company, for not protecting evidence.