Near-fatal car accident can't suppress newlywed couple's love for life

Having been married for nearly a week, Brian and Daphne Gipson experienced the true test of "for better or for worse" when a 70-pound granite boulder crashed through their car and changed the lives of the newlyweds forever.

On the morning of June 7 of last year, the Gipsons, who were married on May 31, began what would be an all-night drive, leaving their honeymoon spot of Disney World in Florida headed home to Rochester, NY.

The couple was driving on Interstate 95 in rural Virginia around midnight when the unexpected happened. A 70-pound, 3-foot-long, granite bolder dropped off an overpass and onto the highway, tearing through the roof and windshield of the car and settling on the back seat.

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Startled but unaware the boulder had crashed through the roof, Brian miraculously regained control of the car and yelled out his wife's name several times, checking to see if she was OK. His new bride of eight days gave no response, as she lay unconscious in the passenger seat.

"I heard the crash and I kept looking forward," Brian tells JET. "I pulled over hoping she was just knocked Out."

After he saw her condition, he immediately called 911 on his cell phone. The middle of Daphne's face had been slit open, causing her eyes to bulge from their sockets. Emergency operators instructed Brian to press towels against Daphne's face to stop the blood from gushing until the ambulance arrived.

Brian walked away from the accident uninjured, but paramedics did not expect his wife to survive. Nearly every bone in her face had been broken and the severity of her brain injury was unknown.

Doctors gave Daphne, 31, a bleak prognosis when her kidneys and lungs started to fail, but her family ignored the detrimental diagnosis and kept their faith in God. "I realize you're doing your job," says Wanda Dudley, Daphne's mom, to the doctor, "but I'm expecting a miracle."

And a miracle is exactly what they received. Kept in a medically induced coma, Daphne was stabilized during the third week when she underwent the first of several reconstructive surgeries. She would later respond to commands using sign language she'd learned from being a special education teacher's aide.

After two months in Fairfax, VA, Daphne was strong enough to be transferred to a hospital in her hometown. There she continued her routine of physical and cognitive therapy.

"She has made so much improvement," says Brian, a FOX network control operator. "She's becoming stronger and stronger one day at a time. But she still has a way to go before returning to work."

Surgeons wanted to remove her blinded right eye, but her husband wouldn't give permission. Daphne has since regained some peripheral vision. More reconstructive eye and nose surgery is planned for the near future.

What is also still healing is Daphne's memory. While her intelligence seems as sharp as before, she admits that she "still can't remember a lot of things," and relies on her husband to fill in the gaps. At first she didn't remember anything about her lavish wedding or her Florida honeymoon. But she says with the help of the wedding videotape memories are vaguely coming back to her. The accident itself however, still remains a blank.

After nine months there are still no clues as to who committed the crime and why, but the Virginia state police still have an agent assigned full-time to the Gipson case. Sgt. Gary Settle suspects young people were to blame in what could be considered a teen prank gone wrong.

"But we certainly aren't going into this with blinders on, targeting one group or an individual or age group," says Settle.

Federal statistics show that approximately 43,000 traffic deaths occur each year in the United States, and one or two dozen of them are triggered by a thrown or falling object.

"I don't know what kind of a person would do something like this," says Brian. "God will deal with them. We're raised where you're supposed to forgive, but that would be very tough for me to do, knowing what they put my wife through."

Daphne has let go of the bitterness she once had following the accident and now focuses on being more positive. Today she simply enjoys life one day at a time.

"They're going to find out, and whatever happens, happens," says Daphne of the crime. "At first I used to be bitter and miserable about what had happened, but I'm just happy to see another day."