:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/woman-paralyzed-from-car-crash-050925-tout-1c2e3fffd88c4b3dbcd8a39797559c43.jpg)
NEED TO KNOW
- Zalia Oliva was paralyzed in a crash that killed her boyfriend
- The emotional moment in which she moved her leg for the first time, captured in a viral video, gave Zalia and her family renewed hope for recovery after months of uncertainty
- Zalia is healing with the support of her faith, her loved ones and an online community that understands life with spinal cord injuries
Zalia Oliva had been paralyzed from the neck down for 10 months when a moment of movement changed everything.
On March 7, 2025, she shared a TikTok video that captured the milestone, overlaid with the words: “A moment that felt like Hozier’s yell. Being paralyzed for 10 months and I moved my leg on my own for the first time today.”
The clip quickly went viral, not just for the miraculous motion, but for the raw emotion behind it. “You can hear my mom crying in the background in the video,” Zalia tells PEOPLE. “It was a happy moment.”
Before the crash that upended her life, Zalia was a college freshman at Grand Canyon University studying criminal justice with hopes of joining the LAPD. “I went to the gym a lot, had a lot of friends, and was rooming with my sister,” she says, describing a life that felt full and promising.
She had also just fallen in love. “We basically lived together, were together every day after work and school, and always spent the night,” Zalia shares of her relationship with her boyfriend, whom she met online in November 2023.
The two had only known each other in person for a few months, but they quickly became inseparable. On April 14, 2024, the day of the crash, they were planning to meet up with his friends.
Courtesy of Zalia Oliva
“I don’t remember the accident, but my sister told me about that day,” Zalia recalls. Her boyfriend was killed on impact, she says, and Zalia’s injuries were catastrophic.
She spent the next three months in three different hospitals, including one month in a coma. “I found out I was paralyzed from my nurse during a shift change. I didn’t hear it from my parents,” Zalia says.
Waking up to that reality was surreal — and painful. But she was quickly faced with the first hurdle in recovery: breathing on her own.
Her second hospital stay focused on weaning her off a ventilator after six weeks. “I remember the first time I could eat, drink and speak after six weeks,” she says. “My mom and I cried the first time I said ‘I love you.’ ”
Every step since then has been a small but meaningful victory. “I honestly thought it would be my fingers moving first, but it was my foot,” Zalia says of the TikTok moment.
That unexpected movement gave her hope. “I started making peace with my wheelchair, but then that happened, and I thought, ‘There’s hope. Something’s going to happen.’ ”
Since then, Zalia has seen progress — slow, but unmistakable. “If I move my body forward and backward, you can see my quad muscles move,” she explains. “Sometimes my feet and legs move when I stretch.”
Her body is fighting to come back, and so is her spirit. Coping with grief while healing physically hasn’t been easy, but Zalia has found a support system in a place she didn’t expect: social media.
Courtesy of Zalia Oliva
“TikTok has helped so much,” she says. “I knew nothing about spinal injuries before, and now I have friends and followers who understand.”
The support is helpful, especially when contrasted with the physical pain and limitations she now faces daily. “It’s more than just a broken neck,” Zalia says. “I can’t feel from my chest down, my fingers don’t move, and I need help 24/7.”
Even sitting in one position too long can trigger a reaction. “If I sit too long, I start sweating and need to be tilted in my chair,” she explains.
Courtesy of Zalia Oliva
Faith has become a constant anchor in her life. Zalia became a Christian in 2019, but she admits her connection to her beliefs deepened significantly after the accident. “My relationship with God has changed,” she shares. Her church community has offered emotional grounding in the moments when physical strength alone wasn’t enough.
Still, the healing journey is anything but linear. “I have hard days where I cry and get rude to people, and good days where I’m motivated,” she says.
More than a year after the crash, recovery remains an unpredictable ride. “I cried this morning; it’s stressful not being able to do things by myself,” Zalia admits.
But every day, every small movement, is a sign of something bigger than the injury itself. “It was a happy moment,” she repeats, thinking back to that TikTok video. A moment that did, in fact, feel like Hozier’s yell for the now-19-year-old.
