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.
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Janne Kouri is a lifelong athlete who played football at Georgetown University. In 2006, during a break in play from a beach volleyball game with friends in Hermosa Beach, CA, he dove into the waves to cool off, hit his head on a sandbar and was instantly paralyzed. After being rescued by an off-duty EMT who was nearby, Janne was transported first to a local hospital, then to Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, where he would spend the next two months battling a life-threatening case of pneumonia, nearly dying multiple times.Read more

In Janne Kouri's native Finland, there is a word - sisu - that he says means "determination and perseverance and never giving up in the face of adversity and most of all not complaining." That special word, along with the friendships he formed and the strength he built as a football player at Georgetown, helped Janne persevere after suffering a serious spinal-cord injury in 2006. He not only has learned to walk with assistance since then, but he also has created a nonprofit corporation called NextStep Fitness so that others can do the same.

The San Francisco native, Frank Alioto can contest to the unlikelihood of such irony. Frank's story was featured on "Breakthrough with Tony Robbins," on NBC July 27, 2010. Click here to watch the episode on NBC.com. "Frank the Tank" a nickname that was inherited and has stuck with him since, is due to the parallel between him and the character played by Will Ferrell in the 2003 box office hit "Old School". Both guys always tinkering with their old red camaro's and hangin' with the fellas.Read more

Every year, 11,000 people hear "you may never walk again," and the majority of them are in the prime of their lives. One young paraplegic who's defying the odds is helping others do the same, not through a new drug or a new surgery, but through exercise.

When Jothy Rosenberg was told after losing a leg and part of a lung to cancer that he would not survive, the teenager went to Utah and skied for 100 days straight.

It was followed by swimming, white water rafting, water skiing, and biking.

Now 36 years later, Rosenberg who is healthy and thriving, has founded six start-up tech companies, earned a PhD and become a grandfather.

In the fitness world Janne Kouri is what they call an animal... a regular gym rat. He's got an ironman work ethic and a routine so relentless it puts many a serious athlete to shame. Kouri's not just training, though. He's recovering. Before: total paralysis. Now: walking with a walker.

The Christopher Reeve Foundation explores revolutionary spinal cord therapies.Read more