What happened to Jessica Tawil? Community celebrates as viral paraplegic woman walks after 10 years

Jessica Tawil, a New Jersey native and a paraplegic whose honesty and resilience on social media have won her millions of followers, recently went viral again.

Nearly nine years after the car accident that left her paralyzed, Tawil posted an emotional video of herself standing and walking with the help of robotic technology, showing a significant development on a long road to recovery.

Tawil rose to internet fame on TikTok with her candid posts about living as a paraplegic, at the age of 16, when an accident turned her life upside down.

It supposedly happened during an innocent hangout with a friend in West Milford, N.J., when the driver lost control of the car on an abandoned road and disaster ensued. The accident caused a spinal cord injury that left Tawil permanently paralyzed from the waist down.

She was hospitalized for seven months for rehabilitation before returning home to resume her previous life. The formerly active teen faced considerable physical and emotional struggles in learning to live in a wheelchair.

"I use tubes to go to the bathroom. I can't shower on my own, I can't go to certain places, my lungs don't expand as well, I can't go to the gym, and most importantly, I can't be independent," she wrote in an instagram post.

Over the years, Tawil has addressed the physical pain and emotional anger she experienced in the wake of the accident, and she has discussed the lengthy journey of acceptance and healing.

Jessica Tawil's transparency about living as a paraplegic and her recent breakthrough

Her transparency about living as a T6 paraplegic, from discussing medical issues like autonomic dysreflexia to discussing intimacy and body image, has brought her over 1.3 million followers on TikTok.

Tawil has become, through her videos, an educator and an ambassador for awareness, assisting millions to better comprehend what life in a wheelchair means.

"TikTok has become my platform to inform others on the dangers of this world, and educate people on how we as paraplegics live our lives," Tawil said in a TikTok video.

Now nearly 10 years following the devastating accident, Tawil has reached another milestone. In her latest viral video, she is seen standing and taking steps with the help of a robotic walking device that supports her entire body.

She appears scared and emotional at the start of the video, but as she gets used to the machine, her look shifts from fear to beaming with joy. Comments filled with uplifting words came surging in right after the video aired.

Tawil earned her degree at Fairleigh Dickinson University in pre-professional biology and earned minors in chemistry and Arabic. She continues to lean into her passion for raising awareness and helping the world better understand life with a disability.