A mother’s split-second decision to save a teenager’s life has inspired an outpouring of support — including a $50,000 donation from Taylor Swift.

Ashley Taunton, a 42-year-old certified nursing assistant, was driving on I-95 in Rhode Island during a torrential rainstorm in July when she saw a vehicle hydroplane off the road.

“When I see there’s somebody in trouble, I tend to want to go help,” Taunton told PEOPLE.

She pulled over, told her young daughter to stay in their vehicle and went to check on the three teenagers involved in the crash. They appeared shaken but relatively okay.

Then another vehicle hydroplaned and came barreling toward them.

With only seconds to react, Taunton pushed the teenager closest to her out of the way and took the impact herself.

“It just felt like a big explosion,” she recalled. “I just remember being on the ground and I could see my ankle was just hanging there. I went to try to get up and I couldn’t breathe.”

Taunton suffered devastating injuries, including damage to multiple organs, broken ribs and a ruptured diaphragm that caused one of her lungs to collapse. She underwent several surgeries and could face up to a year of recovery and physical therapy.

Lying injured along the highway, Taunton feared she might not make it.

“I knew I had internal bleeding,” she said. “I thought, ‘That was it.’ Then in the ambulance as well, I was just praying — I didn’t want to die.”

She survived, and looking back, Taunton says she can see God at work throughout what happened.

“I am so in awe of how evident God’s hand has been in all of this,” she told PEOPLE. “He just put all the right people in all the right places.”

That feeling only grew when Taunton discovered who she had saved.

The teenager she pushed out of the vehicle’s path, Vinny, turned out to be the son of a woman Taunton had been friends with for 14 years. Neither Taunton nor the teen realized their connection at the scene.

When Vinny’s mother learned what had happened, Taunton recalled her reaction: “Oh my gosh, that was Ashley? She saved my son’s life.”

As Taunton recovered, support poured in. A fundraiser for her family raised tens of thousands of dollars, and Taylor Swift added a $50,000 donation of her own.

“This is absolutely mind-blowing and so very humbling,” Taunton wrote on Instagram after learning about Swift’s gift.

She ended her message by pointing the attention back to her faith: “Thank you Jesus for so many amazing humans. This is unbelievable and I am overwhelmed with gratitude. To God be the glory!”

But perhaps the greatest impact of the experience can’t be measured in dollars.

Taunton says coming so close to death has changed the way she wants to live.

“Life is very busy and it’s easy to postpone plans,” she said. “I don’t want to do that anymore.”