Louisville, Ky. (WHAS11) - In a second her Thanksgiving night turned into a night of tragedy but a young Louisville woman struck and paralyzed by an underage drunk driver has plenty to smile about; she's alive and continuing to defy the odds.
She proudly wears her crown as Miss Wheelchair Kentucky and welcomes the title ‘Pageant Queen.’
She proves confidence can take you a long way, even when it seems like your world is over.
Doctors thought hers was.
She has the sash and the crown and the swagger to go with it.
“I had faith and I knew that I was gonna win and I did,” says Tyandriau Irvine.
As a teen mother of a little girl, she found herself literally in the fight of her life and it still leaves her on edge.
“To this day, if I hear somebody drop a box without me knowing or a loud noise, I jump,” she says.
On thanksgiving night in 1996 along Shelbyville Road in Middletown, Tyandriau and her family were in a head on collision with an underage drunk driver.
Tyandriau's neck was broken and the 19-year-old mother found herself paralyzed from the neck down.
When doctors thought she would die she knew she had something to live for; her daughter.
“Being here to take care of her because I didn't want anyone else to take my responsibility and take over,” she says. “My mother told me that they told her it was best for her to put me in a home cause I wouldn't be able to do anything for myself and my mother knew that I was stronger than that.”
Now raising her teenage daughter, she got her undergraduate degree, takes care of herself and won the title of this year’s title.
She's pursuing her Masters Degree in business and communications but has her sights set on her next goal.
“I would love to drive again, that’s the next thing,” she says.
She has regained some mobility in her arms and hands.
Tyandriau says the one thing she does want is an apology from the young man who hit her.
She says he is not in jail.
