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The Pennsbury High School graduate — who goes by "Bre" and had been homeless while struggling with addiction for several years— was in a Philadelphia park when her assailants set her face on fire around 11:30 p.m. Thursday, June 16.
Morales' mom saw footage of the incident online two days later and was able to identify her.
Morales, 36, remains on a ventilator in the hospital, unaware of what happened. And soon, her mom says, a new reality will begin.
"She is still holding on. Still fighting," her mom writes on a GoFundMe page launched for the family. "The doctors are trying to wean her from the ventilator. Baby steps."
Morales is a mom herself but fell on hard times in 2011, and began struggling with addiction.
"She fell down into that deepest darkest hole of addiction," her mom said in a Facebook post. "Started with pain pills and progressed to heroin. She was 'living,' if it can be called that, in the Kensington section of Philadelphia. She survived."
Lee Ann spent many nights waiting for the fateful call saying her daughter's life was over, she writes. And she imagined that was the worst pain of all. Until June 18, when she saw footage of her baby girl on fire.
"My daughter, my baby girl, someone tried to burn alive," the Facebook post says. "I thought that was the worst pain ever... until I saw a video of my daughter burned, in pain, needing help.
"I thought that was the worst pain yet until I saw my daughter wrapped in bandages, on a ventilator, in a medically induced coma trying to survive. I am broken."
"It’s raw and deep and scary and I wish I could hold her and tell her she will make it through the physical and mental battle that’s waiting for her, for us. She is still strong. She is still fighting. She is still improving and we will be there for her to help with whatever comes."
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