On October 14, 1987, the entire country was captivated by the story of 18-month-old Jessica McClure, who had fallen into a well and was trapped down there for nearly 60 hours. As rescue teams struggled to save “Baby Jessica,” the whole nation waited with baited breath hoping and praying that she would make it out alive.

Jessica had been playing outside at the home of her aunt in Midland, Texas when her mother went inside for a second to answer the phone. She rushed out when she heard the child screaming, and was horrified to find that her baby had fallen inside a well that was 22-feet-deep and only eight inches in diameter.

Since the well was so small and narrow, rescuing Jessica was incredibly difficult, and media outlets began to lose hope of her survival as the hours wore on. However, right around the 58 hour mark, rescue workers were finally able to get Jessica out of the well!

Now 30 years-old, Jessica has no memory of being trapped in the well, and she is living a quiet life in Midland. She works as a special-education teacher’s aide at an elementary school while her husband Danny is the foreman at a pipe supply company. They have two children, 9 year-old Simon and 7 year-old Sheyenne.

While she has no memory of the incident in the well, she carries some physical reminders of her ordeal. She had to undergo 15 surgeries after getting out of the well, including the removal of the little toe on her right foot. The toe had to be removed because of gangrene, and to this day her right foot is smaller than her left. Jessica also has a small scar on her forehead which she got from rubbing against the well when she fell asleep.

Jessica was also left with a $1.2 million trust fund that was made up of donations from well-wishers all over the world. She gained access to the trust when she was 25, and though she says much of it was lost in the 2008 stock market crash, she had enough left to purchase the modest house her family lives in to this day.

“I think it’s amazing that people would come together like that to donate money to a child that was not theirs. I appreciate everything they did.” she said.

Jessica loves the quiet life she has with her family, and while she can’t remember being trapped in the well, she sometimes thinks about how tragic it would have been if her life had ended down there before it really started.

“Had I not survived, none of this would have been,” she said, later adding, “I had God on my side that day. My life is a miracle.”