When she was a senior in high school in Akron, Ohio, Jessica Clements joined the Army reserves. She was deployed to Iraq, and though she was scared, she was ready to defend her country.

On May 5, 2004, Jessica's worst fear came true. A roadside bomb was detonated near the unarmored truck she rode in, along with eight other soldiers and a civilian. The shrapnel from the bomb shot into Jessica's lower back and penetrated her skull into three different lobes of her brain. As blood poured from her shattered skull, Jessica lay unconscious and near death. Helicopters immediately airlifted her to Baghdad, where doctors rushed Jessica to surgery.

She was given only a 2 percent chance of survival.

Doctors had to act quickly. »

Though people call her a hero, Jessica says the real hero is the man who saved her life, Dr. Jeff Poffenbarger. Since that fateful day when he saved her life, Jessica has never met her hero…until now. Dr. Poffenbarger—an Army neurosurgeon—says he performed up to seven craniectomies on soldiers a day in Iraq. "I had decided when I went to Iraq that we were going to go straight to the wall for every wounded soldier," he says. "We weren't going to give up on any of them. In [Jessica's] case, she had a very devastating injury." Dr. Poffenbarger says Jessica's condition when she arrived was bad and getting worse. "There was some thought she might pass away right there in the trauma bay, but I thought if we moved quickly, that we could save her," he says. "I am so overwhelmed," Jessica says. "These are the hands that saved my life."