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Melissa Allensworth was nearing rock bottom.

Three years ago, the hard-partying 27-year-old drove out to Arizona for a weekend of partying with friends. She doesn’t remember the night before, but around 5 a.m. she drove her friend home. Allensworth was drunk.

Instead of turning into her friend’s Tucson apartment complex, Allensworth drove her white Ford F150 onto Interstate 10. They had made it 45 minutes out of town when Allensworth presumably passed out and hit a construction sign. The impact jolted her awake. She jerked the wheel hard to the left. The truck slammed into the center divider. It flipped and continued to roll down the highway. The two friends, who weren’t wearing seatbelts, flew out of the truck. The F150 landed on top of Allensworth’s friend.Next Steps

She remained trapped for about an hur before help arrived. The truck’s hood had caved in on Allensworth, crushing her neck and breaking her back. She was paralyzed instantly.

Her friend miraculously suffered only a few broken bones and some road rash.

Meanwhile, Allensworth was left with no motor function below her chest. Doctors gave her a wheelchair and told her to get used to it because she would never walk again.

She spent a couple weeks in an intensive care unit in Arizona before being airlifted to a rehabilitation facility back home in California.

“At rehab, they want to put you in a wheelchair and push you out the door after a week. I had to fight tooth and nail to stay an extra three weeks,” she said. Allensworth was scared. With her neck and back in a clamshell brace, she couldn’t look down, handle her bowel care or perform simple daily activities without the help of nurses. She felt she wasn’t ready to go home.

It took a long time before Allensworth could accept being in a wheelchair. Her first year post-injury was soaked in negativity and depression.

Then, last year, Allensworth joined NextStep Fitness.

The nonprofit fitness facility, located on Redondo Beach Boulevard across from the South Bay Galleria, brings the latest in fitness and health to those living with paralysis and other physical disabilities. NextStep was one of the first community-based facilities to utilize equipment and programs previously found exclusively in a handful of hospitals nationwide.

“It’s been a lifesaver,” Allensworth said. “Being at NextStep puts you in a better mindset — ‘We might not be in these wheelchairs for the rest of our lives.’”
While most rehab facilities focus on activating the muscles the patients can still feel and control, assuming the patient will never regain function in the paralyzed areas, NextStep focuses on strengthening the members’ weak points.

“If you’re not using something, it’s not going to get any better,” Allensworth said.

Her weakness is core strength. Without abdominal and back muscles, Allensworth falls forward if she puts both of her hands in front of her. So at NextStep the trainers focus on activating her core.

“I don’t feel disabled when I come here. When they work you out, they take you out of your chair. You’re working out your paralyzed body parts,” she said.

What makes NextStep different from other facilities, besides its affordability, she said, is that staff creates individualized programs and carefully tracks progress. The most unique benefit of the facility, she said, is Janne Kouri.

The founder

Kouri was playing beach volleyball in Manhattan Beach in August 2006 when he decided to take a dip in the ocean to cool off. As he had countless times before, he dove into a wave. This time, he hit a sandbar and was instantly paralyzed from his neck down. Floating on his back in the water, unable to move, Kouri just hoped someone would see him. An off-duty EMT spotted him and pulled him onto shore. Doctors told the 31-year-old, who had once been an All-American football player for Georgetown University, that he would never walk again.

Kouri spent two months in intensive care with a bad bout of pneumonia, while his girlfriend, now wife, Susan, researched rehab centers. They found Frazier Rehab Institute in Louisville, Kentucky, known to be at the cutting edge of spinal cord injury recovery.

At the facility, Kouri participated in the locomotor training program, which at the time could be found only in seven of the best spinal cord facilities in the country. In locomotor training, patients are lifted up on a weight-bearing harness, with trainers straightlining their hips and moving their arms and legs for them on a treadmill system to simulate walking. The program reminds your nervous system what it’s like to walk again and benefits blood pressure, circulation, bone density and muscle mass, Kouri said. Christopher Reeve was one of the first to participate in the clinical trial for the training.

After spending a year in Louisville, Kouri was ready to return to his life in Hermosa Beach.

“There was nowhere in California where I could continue my locomotor training and the other stuff I did at Frazier. That was frightening. But it also opened my eyes to see that if it wasn’t available to me, it wasn’t available to others either,” he said.

Somewhere to go

Kouri, instead of harboring resentment over his situation, came up with a business plan. He wanted to open a community facility that would offer locomotor and other activity-based training for those with disabilities, preventing them from spending their days in a hospital or rehab. He pitched his plan to the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation in 2006. With donations from friends and family, Kouri raised $1 million in startup capital. Staff from the hospital in Louisville flew out to L.A. to train Kouri’s staff at NextStep for two months, with disabled community members volunteering to be the guinea pigs.

The doors to NextStep opened on June 5, 2008.

From day one, Kouri’s goal was to make NextStep’s offerings affordable.

“For a lot of people, insurance will drop them three weeks after their injury,” he said. “A lot of people who come to NextStep were in rehab for only three weeks and then were stuck at home with nowhere to go.”

Now, they go to NextStep. The facility is filled with state-of-the-art fitness equipment easily accessible for those in wheelchairs and is typically staffed with eight trainers at all times.

Although locomotor training is the core program, the facility also offers electrical stimulation; arm and leg cycling; strength training, stretching and cardiovascular exercise with trainers; monthly peer groups; free classes on nutrition, travel, sex and employment; and free one-on-one life coaching sessions. Aside from those with paralysis and physical disabilities, NextStep accepts members dealing with stroke, multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injuries and Parkinson’s disease.

Kouri said he was fortunate. He was surrounded with support after his injury; Susan and her sister moved to Kentucky with him. But he saw a lot of patients in Louisville who never had visitors. Kouri had plenty.

“I realized the impact of having that type of support group around you. I tried to bring that idea into NextStep. It’s not just a place to come exercise, it’s a place to hang out with people going through the same thing you’re dealing with,” he said.

His members have become his friends, he said.

And the trainers have become family.

“You do become a counselor, a life coach at times. We call it family in here,” said Christel Mitrovich, NextStep’s director.

Lead trainer John Gomez, who has been a personal trainer for 19 years, came to NextStep before it opened because he wanted to work with people who actually needed his help, not wanted it, he said.

“You can’t help but be humbled by what these people go through on a daily basis,” he said. “You or I complain about having to go out and buy dog food at a certain time and in the amount of time it takes us to get it and return, they’re still trying to get in and out of their car.”

Gomez said many members improve psychologically.

“That’s a huge improvement. To go from being depressed, shy, unable to carry on a conversation to being friendly, laughing, talking about dinner or a movie they’ve seen,” he said. “You know you’re helping their quality of life.”

And the fitness program has helped every single member, including Kouri, improve physically — whether it’s a change in skin condition, blood circulation or muscle strength. When Kouri was injured, he had no function below his neck. After a few months, he could wiggle his left toe.

“From there it’s been a constant progression forward. First my toe, then another muscle in my leg, then my core, my glutes…” he said.

Last year, he took his first steps with a walker.

“You never know. One day something starts working that never worked before,” he said.

Amanda Timm had one of those days on Monday.

“Today, I just felt my groin flexing,” she said, smiling. “The first day!”

Timm, the daughter and niece of professional skiers, competed in an alpine ski contest in her native Calgary in February. She was the only girl to pop a 360-degree turn off the base at the competition, her father, Gordon, said. The next day, she asked her dad if she should do more jumps. He told her to just ski a strong line, no tricks. She listened.

“But she came down, hooked an edge, slammed into a tree and here we are,” Gordon said. “It was a freak accident.”

Timm suffered a T5 paralysis and has no motor function from her chest down.

Gordon said they had an experience many other spinal cord injury patients share.

“You’re at the hospital, the quote unquote neurologist and rehab doctors say, ‘Here’s your wheelchair and you’re going to enjoy it because that’s what you’re stuck with,’” he said.

There are no facilities like NextStep in Calgary, and there are only two other spinal cord injury patients in the province, Gordon said. But Amanda, a lifelong athlete and Canadian soccer standout, was determined to find a progressive facility that could help her walk again. Two months ago, they flew down to Los Angeles. She spends her afternoons at NextStep. Gordon and his wife take rotations; one in Canada working, the other always by Amanda’s side.

Seeing Kouri and other NextStep members has given Amanda hope. She continues to improve physiologically every time, Gordon said.

“She’s not allowing it to drag her down. It’s just another hurdle,” he said. “She’s just an athlete who had some bad luck. This is just a setback, it’s not a stop.”

Many members don’t come in with Amanda’s spirit, especially if they’re newly injured.

“They’re kind of at the darkest place in their life,” Mitrovich said. “Immediately you see your peers doing something you didn’t think was possible and trainers that don’t treat you like you’re disabled. It can be very eye-opening and reassuring.”

The members look to Kouri.

“His dedication to the program has been unwavering since the day I met him,” Mitrovich said. “After his injury he and his wife realized, ‘Yes, we are very fortunate and so many others are not.’ They felt they were lucky. But it shouldn’t be that way. Everyone should have access to something like this.”

The cost to survive

But for most rehab programs, the price is too steep.

Kouri’s costs for the one-year stint in Louisville hit eight figures. Most insurance companies give patients $2,500 toward equipment. Kouri’s wheelchair alone cost $35,000.

According to a Reeve Foundation survey, expenses in the first year after a spinal cord injury range from $220,000 to $775,000. The estimated lifetime costs due to a spinal cord injury can range from $681,000 to more than $3 million for a 25-year-old. For most, if they have health insurance, it runs out within a few weeks. But many don’t have it.

NextStep offers different levels of membership to cater to every budget and ability level. Some clients need four trainers to help them sit up or roll over. Other clients just want to lose weight. Some clients pay $1,600 a month, others pay $75 a month, and some pay nothing. With the help of grants and donations, NextStep started a scholarship program for low-income members. Allensworth, who is on disability, said without the scholarship program, she couldn’t afford to be there.

“We want to make sure clients come in here and stay here, and don’t break the bank doing it,” Mitrovich said. “At many other facilities, the clients spend all of their savings and it’s a short-term thing.”

Mitrovich said essentially the whole NextStep program is a scholarship program since they charge a fraction of what it really costs annually to operate the facility — $400,000.

“We eat those costs so our clients can get a program that makes sense. If you’re a quadriplegic and have no use of your arms or legs, you’re going to get that assistance,” she said. “We feel this is a basic necessity (for the members).”

Life on four wheels

Allensworth’s life since her accident is a process.

Before the injury, she was an executive assistant for a property management company. She was known for being quick on her feet, able to run around and multitask.

Now, a shower takes Allensworth a few hours.

Any mundane task an able-bodied person can do in seconds or a few minutes takes Allensworth 15 or 20 minutes.

She also has to set aside time before she leaves her house for outings to take care of things like bowel function.

“Not being able to walk is the least of our concerns,” she said. “Living with this injury is like a full-time job.”

Allensworth said she’s able to live with this because she did it to herself.

“I don’t think I could have lived with myself if there had been another car in the accident or if my friend had gotten more seriously hurt … I was a stubborn person. I needed something drastic to happen before I could wake up and realize what I was doing wasn’t the right way of living.”

Kouri found the irony in his situation. In the months before his injury he had told Susan that he wanted to form a nonprofit, but he couldn’t find a cause that felt like the right fit.

“After my injury, it just slapped me in the face and said, ‘Here you go, here’s your cause. You better do something about this,’” he said.

Next Step will host its “Help Make a Difference” benefit Tuesday, July 26, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at 12 and Highland, located at 304 12th Street in Manhattan Beach. The event will feature cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and a raffle by The Charity Angels. Tickets are $80 pre-sale and $100 at the door. For more information and to get tickets, visit www.nextstepfitness.org.