“It’s so worth it because he’s OK. It’s amazing to see him perfectly fine and playing,” Christine Simoes told reporters from her hospital bed.
Simoes made the life-or-death decision to jump from the third floor of her burning apartment block so as to save her son Camron's life.
Doctors in Massachusetts are unsure whether the 23-year-old mother will ever walk again. She's gone through hours of surgery and doctors don't know if she will have permanent nerve damage.
On Wednesday, May 7th, Simoes was watching television in bed with Camron by her side when she noticed smoke outside her window.
The young mother picked up her child and ran for the door, only to find the hallway covered with thick smoke. Retreating to the bedroom furthest away from the flames, she realised she was trapped. She told Fox News: “I looked out the window again. I realised there wasn’t going to be any time to wait for a firefighter.”
Simoes added: “I grabbed my son and I gave him a kiss. Told him I love him and then I jumped.”
Christina broke her vertebrae following the impact of landing on her feet after jumping and she collapsed immediately. Camron escaped the fall with barely a scratch.
"There's no way that my life would be more valuable than his," Simoes said. "All the pain, everything that I'm going to have to go through is worth it to see him be able to run around and to play."
