It had started as a joyful day. Joy Veron, 30, Texan schoolteacher, was on vacation with her family in the Colorado mountains. The trip had been idyllic, and they were preparing for one last swim before driving home to Texas. Then disaster struck. Her three small children, then aged between two and seven, ran ahead and got into the family SUV, which had its engine running and was parked next to a cliff leading down to a deep canyon. In seconds, the car slipped into gear and started to roll. Scroll down for video . Guts: Joy Veron speaking to Oprah Winfrey on the Oprah: Where are they now? show in March 2015. She survived the accident and battled for years to regain her ability to walk, before eventually being forced to accept that she would never walk again . Happiness: Joy Veron and her three children, L-R: Chloe, 7, Elliot, 2, Annie, 5, in 1999, before the tragic accident that left Joy unable to walk. She threw herself underneath the wheels of a runaway SUV to stop it rolling over a cliff with her children inside . Struggle: After the accident, Joy Veron travelled to Portugal to undergo intensive rehabilitation. She had a stem cell transplant and surgery in an effort to walk again. Tragically, she eventually had to accept that she would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life . 'I just saw complete fear,' she told the Oprah Show. 'I remember their little eyes were huge, looking at me just like, "help me, do something".' Without thinking, she rushed over and threw herself between the vehicle and the canyon, refusing to let her children die. She continued to struggle with the car even as she found herself being dragged under the wheels. 'I just was throwing myself in front of it just to put something in its path,' she said. 'I remember thinking, "I didn't make it in time and I'm getting run over. I'm going to hear a crash pretty soon.' 'I tried to stop it with my hands, which, of course, I couldn't,' she told PBS. 'And I remember feeling it begin to run over me. I fell backwards, and the front of the car caught me by the heels. 'I did like a somersault under the car and the third time it hit I knew that it broke my back. I was 30-years-old and the whole life I knew was gone.' But she had already done enough. Her sacrifice had slowed the car's momentum just enough to allow her father to rush over and activate the brake. Her children were safe. Deadly: The family SUV. It had been left parked with its engine running on the edge of a cliff over a canyon, while the family got ready to drive home to Texas from Colorado. Disaster struck when the three children jumped into the car and it slipped into gear, rolling towards the cliff . However, Joy was so severely injured that everybody thought she was going to die. Her children stood around her crying as the emergency services were called. 'The back tire basically went this way, and just crushed everything, my lungs, my ribs, my clavicle,' she recalled, speaking to PBS. 'I had my head tilted, and they said that's what saved my life as the tire went this way. My father put his hand on the brake before it went over the canyon and said, "Joy, Joy, I got it!" And then I remember hearing my mother scream, and then they ran to the back of the car and found me. 'I couldn't see because the blood vessels had broken in my eyes from the pressure of being run over, and so I told my dad. I said, I don't want to live, I said I'm blind and I'm paralyzed, I just want to die. 'And he said, no, no, no, don't say that, you don't want to die, don't say that. And so the next thing I remember is in a helicopter being flown. My family, they were a huge support. They're the reason I basically survived. They gave me the desire to keep living and to go on. 'It was like this voice said, "you've got a choice here,' she told Oprah Winfrey. 'You can go in if you want to tell your kids goodbye and say those parting words, but if you want to fight, you've got to fight. 'And when I heard them screaming, I knew I had to fight.' This took place in 1999 - she first spoke to Oprah in 2004 - and since then much has changed. Her children, Chloe, 22, Annie, 20, and Elliot, 17, are thriving; Chloe has just graduated from Harvard, and Elliot says that his mother is his 'inspiration'. But Joy herself, now 46, will never walk again. 'After the show I went to Portugal because I'd really been searching for a cure,' she told Operah Winfrey this week, 11 years after the accident, on Oprah: Where are they now? (Sundays, 9 p.m. ET on OWN). 'That was pretty much my focus. I had a stem cell transplant and I went through surgery... But it didn't make me walk again.' After years of arduous rehabilitation, there came a moment of realisation. 'I remember lying in my bed one day and being depressed and hearing my children playing outside,' she said. 'I remember thinking then, it's my choice. I can lie here and I can be depressed and I can miss out a lot in life. 'Or I could learn to walk again. Maybe not walk in the physical sense, but walk in life.' Happy ending: The family are trying to put the pain of the accident, and the subsequent divorce, behind them and focus on the positive things in life. Joy Vernon, second from right, says 'I could learn to walk again. Maybe not walk in the physical sense, but walk in life' Proud: Joy Veron with her daughters Chloe, 22 (left), and Annie, 20 (right). Both girls are incredibly proud of their mother, and Annie says that she 'does more than most moms do' That was exactly what she did. Her younger daughter, Annie, 20, said this week that her mother was more active than most other parents. 'Honestly she hasn't let her wheelchair stop her from anything,' she said. 'I actually think she does more than most moms do.' The accident continues to cast a long shadow over their lives, however. When she was going through rehabilitation, Joy recalled, a doctor told her that 99.2 per cent of marriages 'do not make it' after the woman suffers a serious injury. After 23 years of marriage, Joy and her husband also become two more victims of this statistic. Recalling their recent divorce was the only moment that Joy broke down in tears during the interview. 'I'm hurt,' she said. 'I think that in the beginning, we should have had major counselling. That would have helped a lot. 'Unfortunately, we didn't. I think we were so caught up in my rehab and trying to get me better than we didn't pay enough attention to what he was going through.' But if there is one thing she has learnt from her experience, it is guts. 'It's life,' she said. 'I know it's something I'll make it through.' Then again, her heroic act of 11 years ago shows that she was full of guts already. Together: Joy Veron, centre, with her daughter Annie, 20, left, and her son Elliot, 17, right. They have all pulled together since the accident, although Joy's marriage tragically broke down under the stress of her rehabilitation . Family: Joy Veron's three children, Chloe, 22, left, Elliot, 17, centre, and Annie, 20, right, pictured in 2012. They are full of admiration for their mother, who saved their lives in 1999 by throwing herself under a moving SUV. Elliot, 17, says she is his 'inspiration'
In 1999, Joy Veron, now 46, saved her children by throwing herself beneath the wheels of a SUV that was rolling towards a cliff with them inside . She suffered horrific injuries and after years of rehab she was forced to accept she would never walk again . Speaking 11 years on, she says she has come to terms with her disability - but reveals that her marriage of 23 years did not survive the strain .