Girl, 2, who lost feet in dad’s mowing accident, takes first steps with prosthetics

Nine weeks after a 2-year-old girl lost both feet in a tragic lawn mowing accident involving her father, she’s up and walking, wearing new prosthetics that are plastered with stickers of cartoon character Dora the Explorer.

Ireland Nugent, from Florida, is still “a vibrant 2-and-a-half-year-old kid running around like nothing ever happened,” said her mother in a WKMG-TV report. The girl made a full recovery from the tragedy that sent her into a coma a couple months ago.

Her father, Jerry Nugent, was cutting the grass on a riding lawn mower and didn’t see her. He backed the mower over her legs and the resulting injuries required her feet to be amputated, various media reported.

On Monday, however, the girl took her first steps in the prosthetics, custom made from Orlando Prosthetic and Orthotic Associates.

Her father said, “I’m just speechless. I’m so proud right now.” And her mother, Nicole Nugent, told WKMG reported: “I was so worried what life was going to be for her. I almost felt like life was over for her, and it’s not. She really is going to be OK. She really is going to have a great life.”

Emotionally, her father is still healing.

In The Blaze, he said: “I can tell you from the accident, I was living second to second, and then minute to minute and then hour to hour. I’m still in a day-to-day thing, but I’m moving a little further along than I was then. Someone asked me where God was when all this was happening and then I said he was hanging on to her until I could get a hold of her. And that’s the truth. Because it was really close to being the other way. She could have died that day, and she didn’t.”