Kelly Kay spoke for the first time about the death of her boyfriend Spencer Webb, a college football player who died after an accident in July.
In an interview published Thursday, Kay recalled being at the scene — and watching Webb die.
“I was there,” She told people. “Spencer died in my arms. I was the one who pulled him out of the water and held his head until the paramedics arrived. But unfortunately he passed when they arrived. I was incredulous. I died that day too. It’s incredible.”
She continued, “The entire time we were waiting for the paramedics, I just spoke to him and said to him, ‘We’re going home. We’re getting out of here.” There was a small glimmer of hope in my head that maybe we’d be okay, but it didn’t end that way.”
Webb was recovered on July 13 from a popular cliff jumping site called Slide Rock about 35 miles west of the University of Oregon campus. Law enforcement officials said the 22-year-old, who was a close end for the school’s Oregon Ducks team, had fallen while climbing a cliff and suffered a fatal head injury.
A week after Webb’s death, Kay learned she was pregnant. The model welcomed her son in late March – naming him Spider in honor of his father’s nickname in the Ducks locker room.
“I can’t remember the first five or six months,” Kay told People. “Trauma brain is real, and between the morning sickness of being pregnant and just being depressed and not eating, it was super, super tough.”
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It has long been established that traumatic stress can severely affect the brain. As published by the National Institutes of Healthone study has shown that it can lead to a variety of disorders, depression and dissociation and the type of memory loss Kay is alluding to.
Kay nonetheless felt Webb’s presence, and said that Justin Bieber’s “Ghost” — a “very emotional song about someone dying,” which she played at a memorial service for Webb — rang out in the doctor’s office in the midst of the confirmation of her pregnancy.
“When the doctor told me, I just thought he knew,” Kay told People. “That’s the sign. That should happen. As down as I was, there was a little bit of happiness in me knowing I’ll have a piece of him.
Since then, she’s been enjoying “every single second” of motherhood.
“The joy of the new baby got me out of the depression I was in, but I think the sadness of losing Spencer is a chip on my shoulder that will never go away,” Kay told the outlet and added that she hopes her son will go to the University of Oregon in the future. “I know he will be D1.”
“He’s already non-stop,” she concluded.
