Kansas mother and daughter battle trauma, loss after car hit family in downtown Louisville

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The last 34 days have established a new reality for 17-year-old Ava Jones. Sitting beside her mother, Amy, the teenager who committed last month to play basketball at the University of Iowa reflects on the event that changed their lives.

"My arm is injured, my knees are not the same and my voice is not the same," she said last week from Frazier Rehab Institute in Louisville. "I don't remember waking up, but my brother, Hunter, was here."

The Jones family was in town for an AAU basketball tournament last month, exploring a new city days after Ava fulfilled a lifelong dream.

"I remember the morning," Amy Jones said. "We went down to Louisville Slugger and downtown. Other than that, everything is a blur."

The Crash

On July 5, Amy and Ava Jones were walking on the sidewalk at 2nd and Main Streets in downtown Louisville. Two days earlier, Ava Jones had announced on social media that she'd play big-time college basketball for the Hawkeyes. Between games at the national "Run 4 Roses" tournament at the Kentucky Exposition Center, the Jones family was sight-seeing downtown on a summer evening when they were hit by a car that jumped the curb. Michael Hurley, 33, admitted to police on scene that he was high on hydrocodone when he lost control.

This booking photo from Louisville Metro Corrections dated July 5, 2022, shows 33-year-old Michael Hurley. (Louisville Metro Corrections)

The two of them — along with Ava's father, Trey, and her 10-year-old brother, Creek, who were also hit — were rushed to the hospital.

"And then we woke up like eight days later," Amy Jones said.

Investigators said Hurley was trying to make a turn from East Market Street to North 2nd Street when he told police — according to the arrest report — he was "so tired he could not make the turn."

He is being held at Louisville Metro Corrections on a $500,000 cash bond.

Creek walked away with a few bumps and scrapes. But Amy and Ava Jones woke up to learn their husband and father, Trey, had passed away a few days earlier.

"Trey and I were married 21 years," Amy Jones said. "It really won't sink in until I get home, I think, ... that he's not here."

Trey and Amy Jones had been married 21 years when he died.

What They Lost

Trey Jones, 42, grew up in the small town of Nickerson, Kansas, passing on his love of sports to his children as the high school's head track coach. His eldest, Hunter, ended up beating one of his father's school records before signing to run at Pittsburg State University.

"Trey did teach Hunter all of the stuff that he needs to be successful from here on out," Amy Jones said. "It just makes me sad, because our youngest is just 10, and so he's gonna have to have eight more years going through high school and middle school without a dad."

The outpouring of support has been felt across several states. Fans in Iowa City, Iowa, were shocked to hear their future basketball star was lying in a hospital bed hundreds of miles away. And the residents of the small Kansas town — population barely more than 1,000 — that the Jones family left that first week of July have hung on every update and mourned a pillar of their community.

"He was a great man," Hunter Jones said of his father. "He was a mentor for a lot of kids. Just seeing the people that he was there for, — the people that he mentored, my goods friends that don't have father role models around — he was there for them. He was just a great, great person overall and he's loved by so many."

Hunter Jones flew into town the week of the crash to take care of Creek.

"My father taught me everything I know, so now, I need to teach him everything I know," he said of his youngest brother. "Now that I've learned as much as I could from my father, I'm just here to take care of him and I'll teach him the same that he taught me."

Jones Family

Fighting Back

Ava and Amy Jones are mourning their loss one day at a time, hundreds of miles from home. Right now, they're just trying to take things step-by-step at Frazier Rehab.

Each day, that means the two endure multiple hours of therapy.

"I would equate Amy's injury to something Evel Knievel might have had back in the day," said Dr. Darryl Kaelin, medical director of Frazier Rehab. "The amount of trauma that this family — and, in particular, Ava and Amy — have experienced is horrific."

Kaelin said Amy Jones had multiple fractures to her spine, shoulder, shoulder blade, rib cage, pelvis, right thigh and both shins. Ava Jones had several fractures as well and a head injury "a little more significant than her mom's," Kaelin said.

"I think both Amy and Ava have incredible intestinal fortitude," he said. "They're very strong, and because they do support each other and want to be there for each other, I think it helps in dealing with the pain. But they are both in a lot of pain every day."

Every day, it's been physical therapy to work on lower body strength, occupational therapy to work on self-care skills and speech therapy to work on swallowing, talking and even thinking.

Amy Jones remains unable to stand much at all.

"Therapy is hard work, and the simplest thing for me is the hardest," she said.

Ava Jones — As they mourn their loss one day at a time, Ava and Amy Jones are taking things step-by-step at Frazier Rehab Institute. (WDRB Photo)

And while the journey ahead is long, the prognosis is bright.

"We're very hopeful that they'll both get back very close to where they were before," Kaelin said.

They're hoping to be discharged Aug. 17, which would be 43 days after the crash that changed their lives. Together, it's a mother eager for her daughter to recover and a daughter eager to live out the dream she realized just two days before the crash.

"We don't know what this year will be, but hopefully, throughout the whole year, (Ava) will have ... complete recovery and she can just go to college and not skip a beat," Amy Jones said.

And Iowa will make sure it has a place for Ava Jones. The family said this week that they've been told her scholarship will be honored in Iowa City regardless of her ability to play. But make no mistake: Her expectations haven't changed one bit.

"(I see myself) moving up and down the court, posting up and shooting the three," Ava Jones added. "Well, I'm not allowed to. But in college, I will be."

A GoFundMe page for the Jones family has already brought them close to $150,000. If you'd like to donate, click here.

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