A Connecticut mother who was struck by a car on Interstate 95 in Hopkinton, Rhode Island, while helping three teenagers out of a wrecked vehicle on July 18, 2026, found out during a physical therapy appointment that pop superstar Taylor Swift had quietly sent $50,000 to the fundraiser covering her recovery.
Ashley Taunton, 42, a certified nursing assistant and mother of three from Ledyard, Connecticut, said her husband, Joe Taunton, delivered the news after GoFundMe emailed him to verify the contribution. The fundraising platform later confirmed directly to her that the money had come from the singer.
“No way. Supposedly Taylor Swift just donated $50,000 to the GoFundMe,” her husband told her. She could not imagine it at first, she said on Monday, and then asked herself who else would give that much.
Swift made the donation on August 28 to a campaign titled “Support Ashley Taunton’s Brave Recovery,” organized by Taunton’s friend Laura Ortelt. It was the largest single gift to the fund. As of noon on Monday, August 31, the campaign had collected $90,007 from more than 1,000 donations toward a $110,000 goal, up from $88,787 the night before. A separate Meal Train for the family had drawn more than $16,000 by the same day.
“Wishing you the best recovery possible and sending love to your family!” Swift wrote in a comment on the campaign page.
A Split-Second Decision on I-95
Taunton was driving south on I-95 that Saturday, July 18, in a torrential rainstorm, heading home to Ledyard from Newport with her youngest daughter. About 2 1/2 miles from the Connecticut state line, she spotted a car that had hydroplaned off the highway and come to rest near the tree line. She pulled over roughly 30 yards away, told her daughter to stay back and call her father, and went to the teenagers.
Three teenagers were climbing out of the wrecked car, and Taunton said they appeared to be physically OK, if banged up. As she was consoling them, another driver who had stopped at the scene shouted a warning that a second car was bearing down on the group. An official crash report Taunton provided to People says the southbound driver of that vehicle lost control on the wet pavement.
Taunton shoved the nearest teenager clear and absorbed the impact herself. The 19-year-old she pushed to safety, Vinny O’Rourke, turned out to be the brother of one of her children’s good friends and the son of a woman she had known for 14 years — a connection the family did not piece together until she was in the hospital.
Weeks in the Hospital and a Long Recovery
Taunton was first brought to Westerly Hospital before being transferred to Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, where she was treated for bilateral internal carotid artery dissection, lacerations to her liver and spleen, multiple rib fractures and a ruptured diaphragm that collapsed one lung. She also suffered a severe leg and ankle injury and nearly lost her foot, along with internal bleeding and damage to her small and large intestines. Doctors placed her in a medically induced coma, and she underwent three surgeries over three days during the four-day coma.
Joe Taunton told NBC affiliate WJAR of Providence that his wife has had at least three operations. The family says more surgeries are scheduled and that her recovery could take up to a year. She spent 30 days in the hospital.
Taunton, who creates lifestyle content for an Instagram audience of over 33,000 followers, has chronicled the ordeal for her followers, sharing hospital photos taken while she lay in the induced coma, images of the nasogastric tube she needed for a small bowel obstruction and of the staples closing her stomach, and, lately, pictures of herself back at home in a leg brace. On August 17, she posted that three surgeries and a 30-day hospital stay were behind her, that she was finally back home, and that her recovery was still ongoing.
Ortelt has said the money will benefit Taunton, her husband and their three children. According to the campaign, it will go toward the family’s everyday bills, the cost of traveling to the hospital, food and groceries, and medical charges insurance will not pay.
A Star From Just Down the Road
Swift’s gift landed close to home in more ways than one. The singer owns a house in the Watch Hill section of Westerly, Rhode Island, not far from where the crash happened. The Tauntons work at a Misquamicut Beach hotel from which they can see the property, and Ashley Taunton is a former Westerly resident. She said the family has long admired Swift.
Swift, whose net worth is estimated at $2 billion, has a documented history of donating to GoFundMe campaigns, including one for a family of eight facing enormous medical expenses and another that helped a fan with autism obtain a service dog. Ahead of their July wedding, Swift and her husband, NFL tight end Travis Kelce, donated $26 million across 20 U.S. charities, including $1 million to the Rhode Island Community Food Bank.
Writing on Instagram after the donation surfaced, Taunton called the gesture humbling and said she hoped to thank Swift in person one day, noting that she lives about 20 minutes away. Speaking on August 31, she said stopping for people in trouble is instinctive for her, something she considers God-given, and that she rarely thinks it through before acting. Her recovery, she said, is far from over.