INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (WDAF) — The faint scars on Rachael Howen’s face tell her story of survival. The 42-year-old was in a freak accident on June 13 while she was helping out at a horse stable in Jackson County, Missouri.

Howen said she was feeding some of the horses, something she knew how to do after growing up on a working farm, when the unexpected happened.

“[Three hay bales] crushed me and pinned me to a golf cart,” she recalled from her home in Independence.

Howen screamed for help but it was muffled due to her being smothered to death. However, within about a minute, she was, “by some miracle, able to pick it up and fall out.”

An adrenaline rush helped Howen push the 1,500-pound hay ball off of her body but doing so used up every bit of strength she had, and she collapsed on the ground, which is when she made another startling discovery.

“It ripped my nose off and broke out my maxilla and 12 teeth. I was cut from my eyebrow all the way to my [upper lip] and my nose was off to the side,” she said.

Someone she worked with held her until paramedics showed up to take her to the hospital, but soon after her arrival doctors knew they couldn’t perform the surgery that she needed, so she was taken to a different medical center. Two surgeons there sewed her nose back in place that night and fixed her eyelid, which was split open. She stayed in the hospital for five days, where her family helped take care of her.

As for her upper mouth, doctors did a skin graft two months later in August. They took a piece of healthy skin from her leg and attached it to her upper mouth. It’s since healed and has fit in beautifully with the rest of her face.

Howen’s now working with a dentist to get a set of upper teeth to replace all of the ones that were knocked out and is also hoping to get a rhinoplasty to help her nose look like it did before the accident.

“[My nose] is crushed. It goes to one side so I can only breathe out of that one side. It affects my ability to breathe and talk comfortably,” she said.

In light of how beautifully her face has healed, Rachael said the trauma of looking different is still hard to deal with. She explained it was “shocking” how some people have treated her now that she looks a little different.

“People treat you differently when you’re not beautiful. People are afraid of anything that is different, and I definitely look different,” Howen said.

She’s since gotten back into playing volleyball, music, and supporting her five children at their various sporting and musical activities. Her voice lessons, which she started about six months before the accident, have proved to be a big help as she learned to talk without her upper teeth.

Howen said you can hear her lisp, but FOX4 didn’t notice it until she pointed it out.

The freak accident that nearly cost Howen her life made her realize her priorities in life: her children, family, friends, four cats, “and making connections that are genuine and real.” Her hope this Christmas is to get a new set of beautiful upper teeth that look like what she used to have. Her lower teeth are still broken from the incident, but she plans on getting braces for them before switching to veneers.

“I think the miracle that everyone has commented on is that not only am I alive, but I didn’t suffer any brain damage,” she said, before she played us a beautiful Christmas song on the piano, with her cats sitting around watching her play.

To help Rachael as she continues to recover, visit the GoFundMe her family has set up for her.