When she heard the tree crack, Jessica Dicks knew her kids were in danger.

She dove for the tent where they were playing, racing a 10-metre tree toppling toward them.

"I remember running for the tent and then that's it — blank," said Dicks, 27. "Then the tree hit me, and it crushed me."

Her family - including her daughters, aged six, four, and 10 months, was on a camping trip on July 3 at Lawrence Lake Provincial Park, two hours north of Edmonton.

Three weeks after that day in the campground, where Dicks used her body to deflect the tree away from the tent, she finally woke up from a medically induced coma at the University of Alberta Hospital. She had 20 staples in her head and broken teeth. Rods and screws installed surgically in her back helped alleviate the pain.

She suffered a collapsed lung and broken ribs. A crushed T5 vertebra left her paralyzed from the chest down. Her doctor told her she'll never walk again.

Jessica Dicks' girls, Alie, Dailynn and Charlie, camping at Lawrence Lake. (Supplied)

'Life is a whole lot of work now'

Since the day she was injured, Dicks has moved from disbelief to "a whole lot of why me?" before concluding there's no answer to that question.

She kept thanking her spouse, Jason, for staying by her side.

"Life is a whole lot of work now," Dicks said. "This isn't what we had planned."

What they had planned included buying a house, having another baby and a lot more camping, fishing and Ski-Dooing.

"All the things that we love doing — things we'll still be able to do, they'll just be difficult," Dicks said.

Dicks spoke to CBC News on Tuesday on one of the first occasions she ventured out of the hospital, her family by her side. She wants to warn other parents to be aware of the hazards while camping.

Just a week earlier she was released from the intensive care unit and had her feeding tube removed.

Dicks said the hardest part of the experience has been the separation from her daughters.

"She didn't even recognize me," said Dicks, her voice breaking, as she recalled seeing 10-month-old Charlie for the first time after five weeks apart. "I couldn't console her when she cried."

Everything is harder now: getting out of bed, getting dressed and imagining the future.

Worries range from "how hard it's going to be to chase after three kids in a wheelchair," Dicks said, to whether she can afford what she now needs — medication, home care, equipment, wheelchairs, home modifications and an accessible van.

Jessica Dicks was released from the intensive care unit on Aug. 9. (Supplied)

An uncertain future

As a roofer, Dicks made her living by climbing ladders and hauling heavy bundles onto rooftops. She worked for her spouse, an independent contractor. Because he's been by her side since the accident, they have no money coming in.

Dicks' uncle has set up a crowdfunding campaign. Monty Major doesn't want the niece he thinks of as his own daughter to worry about money on top of everything else.

He's also set up a Facebook page with updates on her progress because he knows "she can use all the positive energy and prayers from everyone," he said.

"I think she's a hero. I really think she saved at least one or more of those little girls."

Dicks said the support of her family allows her to take "leaps and bounds instead of baby steps."

Her children inspire her to stay positive.

"They're pretty well my motivation for trying at all to get out of this hospital and out of this chair. I have to get back to them," said Dicks, who, despite the doctors' prognosis, remains hopeful she will walk again one day.

When asked about the sacrifice she made for her children, Dicks looks over at baby Charlie, sleeping peacefully in her stroller.

"I would rather be paralyzed than one of them be dead, or them be paralyzed," she said.

"I'd rather sit in a wheelchair for the rest of my life and watch them grow up normally than be in the hospital with one of them."

@andreahuncar

andrea.huncar@cbc.ca