The hardest I ever fell was on a casual ride. There was an expansion gap in the concrete and it swallowed my front wheel, only about an inch down. It stopped my front wheel and threw me into traffic.
I ended up ok, really rashed up and my nethers were quite visible for the ride home through the holes in my bibs. Mostly OK but I narrowly missed getting run over by a car. I attribute my escape from injury to being 22 at the time. Youngsters can take a hit.
I think there is a chance something similar happened to your wife. It sounds kinda like an over the bars type of event. Is that crack ever wide enough to fit a tire into? Doesn’t even need to be the whole thing, just enough to catch it.
I didn’t have the same mechanical damage but all falls are pretty different, even if they’re caused by the same thing.