When Rob Dietrich carried his bride, Tami Martin out of the church that day, she had just finished the most important walk of her life. The walk down the aisle was more important for Tami than most brides, “I walked down the aisle publicly after being told I would never walk again,” Martin said.
Tami was told for years by doctors that she would never be able to walk again, let alone walk down the aisle to get married. It was October 25, 1999 and Tami was involved in a minor car accident that ended up causing major problems. “There wasn’t a physical mark on my body. Everything was internal. My spine was crushed between L1 and L2, and they said I would never walk again,” Martin said. Physical therapy was extremely difficult and the pounds began to settle in, then she had to stop going all together. “I’d taken a break because I gained a lot of weight, and I broke my leg doing physical therapy,” she explained.
After a surgical procedure Tami started to lose the weight she’d gained since her accident. “The last time I weighed I had lost 192 pounds. I had always been fit before. I said I might not walk, but there is no way I’m going to be out of shape,” Martin declared. This helped her achieve her goal, in addition to more physical therapy and tears, she was finally able to prove the doctors wrong. She walked down the church’s aisle the entire 36 feet with her walker tucked underneath her white dress.
“As we go on, there are all these firsts. She’s breaking records every day,” Rob Dietrich said. Tami is ready to keep moving forward, she says “And now my goal is to walk again on my own without the aid of anything.”