$150K Raised for 3-Y-O Girl Found Clinging to Christian Mother's Lifeless Body in Flood
Just over 4,500 people moved by the heartbreaking story of a 3-year-old girl, Jordyn Grace, who was rescued still clinging to her mother's lifeless body as it floated in floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey in Beaumont, Texas, on Tuesday, donated some $150,000 to help her in just one day.
Collette Sulcer, 41, Jordyn Grace's unashamed Christian mother who worked as a nurse, died trying to keep her only child alive while desperately praying to God for help on Tuesday.
"Mama was saying her prayers," Jordyn Grace told a relative, Antionette Logan, 38, as she recovered from the ordeal in a Beaumont hospital Wednesday, according to The New York Times.
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"Jordyn told me they were in the yucky water for quite a while," Logan said. "It's a tragedy that her mama died, but it's a miracle that Jordyn survived."
The moving narrative of Sulcer making the ultimate sacrifice for her child prompted an outpouring support from many mothers who left touching messages on the trending GoFundMe campaign.
"Your mother's love for you didn't end with her death. Know all of us mothers are loving you now, and I hope for your future you will come to be the glorious person she would have made you. Love you baby," wrote Andrea Geralds Taylor, one of the hundreds of donors who contributed to the campaign.
Michael Skolnik, a civil rights activists as well as co-founder of @WeAreSoze who started the GoFundMe campaign for the child late Wednesday said her family was still trying to cope with the devastation of Harvey as they grieve the beloved nurse they affectionately called "Nan."
"While the family was hoping to have a meeting this afternoon, many of them are still in danger from flooding and lack of running water, so they are very focused on making sure that all members of their family are safe," Skolnik wrote in an update on the campaign Thursday.
Sylvia Allison, one of Sulcer's cousins who has been publicly grieving her loss on social media, confirmed that while the family of pastors and nurses are doing "fine" they were still trying to deal with surviving Harvey.
"Thanx for everybody who checked on me and my family. We are doing fine, and so is Jordyn Grace. As of now we are trying to survive the aftermath of Harvey and what's to come with the flood. We will get back to all the private messages and for the people who just wants to help out once everything is in place," Allison wrote on her Facebook page.
Beaumont Police confirmed Wednesday that Sulcer, 41, was driving along the south bound service road of 50 IH10 N, with her young daughter when she got into high water. She then pulled her vehicle into the Plaza 10 parking lot where the vehicle got stuck.
She eventually exited the car with her daughter and got swept away by the floodwaters.
While Sulcer was unresponsive when police found her, Jordyn was alive but was suffering from hypothermia. Sulcer was pronounced dead and Jordyn was hospitalized.
"They were in the water for quite some time," Officer Carol Riley, a spokeswoman for the Beaumont Police Department, told People magazine. Sulcer "absolutely saved the child's life" she said.
"When the baby was found the baby was clinging to her. The mother did the best she could to keep her child up over the water," Riley said. "The baby also had a backpack that was helping her float on her back and she was holding on to her mom."
