Woman recovers after being struck by boat propeller near Sanibel

A day on the water turned into a nightmare for a woman and her family.

Sue Brady woke up from surgery Tuesday after being struck by a boat propeller on Saturday near Lighthouse Beach on Sanibel. She credits her daughters with saving her life.

Parents are always looking out for their children but Brady said she would have died without her two daughters looking out for her. When she was bleeding and unable to move, her daughters jumped into action.

“They saved my life, 100 percent,” Brady said.

Brady calls her daughters heroes after their boat trip went horribly wrong. She, her two daughters and her boyfriend went out on a boat over the weekend. Brady’s cousin, Amanda Overmire, said Brady hopped out when the boat kept getting beached.

“There was a miscommunication between her and her boyfriend,” Overmire said. “She thought that he was waiting for her to get into the boat and he turned on the engine. She fell right into the propeller.”

The propeller struck Brady’s entire left side. Her 12- and 13-year-old daughters started pulling their bleeding mom to shore.

“When we finally did get to shore, somebody had given us a couple towels,” Brady said. “They made sure to put pressure on my body, and they just kept saying things to me like, ‘We love you, Mom. You’re going to see us graduate. You’re going to watch us get married. This isn’t over, Mom. Stay with us.’”

They were all able to hang on long enough for the trauma helicopter to respond and take Brady to the hospital.

“I thought she was gonna die,” Overmire said. “I heard about it when it happened. She lost so much blood. We weren’t sure if she was gonna make it through the night.”

But she pulled through.

“I would have died,” Brady said. “I would’ve died for sure.”

At the hospital, doctors were worried Brady would lose her leg, but, fortunately, she did not.

Brady said she severed the nerve in the back of her leg. She also broke a hip and leg bone. She said her surgery on Tuesday went well and she has a lot of hope.

“A lot of it had to do with love,” Brady said. “We share an amazing bond.”