After the incident, Reeves was in such bad condition that she had to relearn everything, from swallowing to walking and talking. In an episode of Crime Watch Daily with Elizabeth Smart, Reeves revisited the park where she was found. “It’s kind of hard to believe that this is actually where I was for that long and in that condition,” she said. “[It] makes me feel like maybe I am as tough as everybody says I am. I’m a fighter and I just keep wanting to push myself harder and harder.”

In 2021, Lifetime made a dramatized film of Reeves’s story called Left for Dead: The Ashley Reeves Story. At the end of the film, it’s revealed that Reeves has two children, who she’s raising in Illinois while working as a caregiver. Perhaps her experience informed her decision to care for others, but Reeves tries to live without that defining her. Now 35 years old, she keeps a low profile with her last recorded interview in 2017.