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Jordan Shipley update: Wife of former Texas star shares 'miracle' after surgery, 'crushing news'

Danby: Daniel Hager01/09/26DanielHagerOn3

The wife of former NFL and Texas wide receiver Jordan Shipley gave yet another update on her husband’s health Thursday night after he was involved in a ranch accident earlier this week. Sunny Helms Shipley went to Instagram to reveal that his doctor stated that Jordan’s burns looked “far better than anything he was expecting to find after his assessment the day before.”

“Yesterday, after taking a closer and more in-depth look at Jordan’s burns and condition, his burn surgeon very frankly told me that he would mostly likely be getting quite a few skin grafts in multiple spots on his arms, legs and hands,” Shipley said in a statement released on her Instagram story. “Skin grafting adds many more weeks in the hospital, multiple more surgeries, extremely long recovery time and life-long complications.”

“It’s a necessary and life saving measure for many and we knew that, but it was crushing news nonetheless. He went into surgery earlier this morning and the surgeon looked at me and asked if I had gotten any sleep. I smiled and said ‘yes I got a little last night’. He said, ‘Good. You’re gonna need rest because y’all are going to be here for a while’.”

” I shook my head and said ‘I know’, but a still strong voice inside me said ‘my child, tell him he’s wrong’. So I laid my hands on Jordan and prayed over him in agreement, with his Dad and sister, that they would unwrap his burns and there would be healing to the extent that there would be no other answer but Jesus,” Sunny Shipley continued. “As we were leaving, I asked the surgeon how long he’d be operating on him and he said ‘at least an hour and a 1/2’. I went back up to Jordan’s room and laid down to rest.”

“I wasn’t laying there for more than 20 minutes when the door opens and his surgeon walked in shaking his head, smiling with disbelief. His first words to me were ‘I don’t know what kind of prayers y’all have been doing but I’m done already. I put up all of my sharp tools’. He explained that his burns looked far better than anything he was expecting to find after his assessment the day before. He said he’d never seen anything like it and didn’t know how to explain it. ‘Thank you Jesus’ is all I could keep saying through tears of gratitude.”

“Again, we are truly humbled by the amount of people praying for Jordan. You all stormed the gates of heaven and our God’s healing hand touched Jordan because of it. I have no doubt. I just want to say thank you to anyone who spoke Jordan’s name to the Lord these last few days. He still has a long recovery, they’ll be scaring and some long term changes, but the news we got today was better than best case scenario. A miracle. I just want you all to hear it and rejoice with us. HE is worthy of all of our praise.”

Jordan Shipley played six seasons at Texas, three seasons in NFL

It was reported on Tuesday that Shipley was left with third-degree burns on around 20 percent of his body after being in an accident on his family’s ranch. In a statement, the family said that the machine he was operating on the ranch caught fire, and he sustained “severe burns” before leaving the area. One of the workers on the ranch drove Shipley to a local hospital. He was then care-flighted to Austin.

Shipley played for Texas from 2004 to 2009. In his five seasons with the Longhorns, Shipley helped the team win the BCS National Championship in 2005 and was named a Consensus All-American in 2009 after catching 116 passes for 1,485 yards and 13 touchdowns.

In 2010, the Cincinnati Bengals selected Shipley in the third round of the draft. He spent two seasons with the Bengals before playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Jacksonville Jaguars in 2012. In 24 career games, Shipley caught 79 passes for 858 yards and four touchdowns.

On3’s Brian Jones contributed to this report.