Jessica Aguilar Returns at Brooklyn Half Marathon 2026 After 7% Leg Loss
Jessica Aguilar will run the brooklyn half marathon 2026 this weekend, less than three years after a December 2022 crash left her with 7% of her right leg gone. The comeback is bigger than one race result: she reached this start line after emergency surgeries, relearning how to walk and then finding her way back to running.
Jessica Aguilar and Brooklyn Half Marathon 2026
Aguilar was struck by a drunk driver in December 2022, and a truck dragged her 40 feet before she lost part of her right leg. She later had three emergency surgeries, reconstruction surgery and skin graft surgery, then had to learn how to walk again.
She had started running as a sophomore in high school and said it carried her into college. After the crash, that part of her life went quiet for years. “I gave up on it for years,” Aguilar said. “And it's just a life I accepted for myself at the time.”
Her daughter changed the path
The turn back came through her daughter. Aguilar said her daughter saw pictures of her running in college and pushed her to try again. “She's like, 'Mom, you can do this,'” Aguilar said.
Her daughter later signed her up for a half marathon that raised money for her school, and that led Aguilar to start entering New York Road Runners races. She said, “They have created a space for me to race in a way that I get to tell my story,” turning those starts into part of her return rather than a one-off effort.
Finishing with her daughter
Aguilar said the ultimate goal is finishing the RBC Brooklyn Half and getting to see her daughter run. “I'm a better mom to my daughter because of it, and now she has this mother who has shown her what resilience looks like and like not to give up, especially if something we love to do,” she said.
That is the sharp edge of this weekend’s race: she is not just lining up in Brooklyn, she is racing with a daughter’s push behind her and a recovery that once ended her running future. Reports from the course are scheduled to air Saturday morning on Eyewitness News.
