‘Miracle baby’ sings at Levi’s
She sang anthem at a 49ers game for her Make A Wish dream
SAN JOSE — Jim and Heather Walker were surprised when their doctor said their soon-to-be born daughter would be very lucky to live past birth since she would be born with severe heart conditions and no eyeballs.
But ever since Audrey Walker’s birth, the family’s “miracle baby” just keeps defying the odds. More than nine years later on Oct. 2, Audrey took to the field of Levi’s Stadium in front 68,500 people to sing the National Anthem. Her rousing rendition before a football game brought praise from fans and players from both the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys.
Audrey’s big day was made possible through the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Audrey has had trouble with her heart since birth and has undergone multiple open-heart surgeries. According to her parents, she was supposed to be born dead. Fortunately for the family, the only doctor in the world who could save her life happened to be 30 miles away.
Audrey has tetralogy of fallot, a congenital heart defect, and a hole in the septum of her heart, and is missing her right ventricle valve and pulmonary artery. She also has bilateral anophthalmia, the medical term for the absence of eyeballs.
While the thought of singing in front of a crowd of thousands would scare most people, Audrey says the enormous crowd didn’t bother her at all.
“I love to sing,” says the Country Lane Elementary School fourth-grader.
Audrey says she wants other children with disabilities to know they can still pursue activities that make them happy. She hopes her anthem performance inspired others.
Audrey’s love for singing and the 49ers was combined at the age 5 when she and team quarterback Colin Kaepernick gave an impromptu comedy performance at Camp Taylor, a camp for children with severe heart conditions put on each year by Kaepernick’s adoptive family. She sang “Let It Go,” from the Disney movie “Frozen.”
After appearing on a few sports talk-radio segments, singing at fundraisers for charities and at the U.S. Invitational Scottish Highland Games Heavy Athletics Championship in Pleasanton in September, she decided she wanted to give back to others. Audrey and her father appeared on multiple radio segments after her first trip to Camp Taylor and 49er fan websites posted blogs about her life story and goal to make others happy in any way she could.
After singing at numerous events, Audrey and her parents reached out to the Make-A-Wish Foundation to see how Audrey could contribute to making wishes come true for others.