She was born in Istanbul in 1979. Ömür's mother Emine Doğançay and her father Hürol Kınay divorced when Ömür was one year old. From then on, she stayed with her mother. In the mid 1990s, she and her mother returned to Istanbul from Germany, where they had lived. At age 20, Ömür and her mother moved into their newly purchased flats situated one upon the other in the same apartment block at Sefaköy, Küçükçekmece. Just one week later, her mother died in the earthquake on August 17, 1999 under the debris of the wrecked building. Ömür was found four-and-half hours later hugging her mother. She was rescued from the wreckage, and was taken into a nearby hospital. However, she became paralyzed due to a spinal cord injury. A photograph showing her with sideward tipped head under the concrete debris appeared on the main page of major newspapers. Currently, she is forced to use a wheelchair.