LI father makes miraculous recovery, walks out of hospital after paralyzed in freak accident

GREAT NECK (WABC) -- A father has made a miraculous recovery after being paralyzed from the shoulders down in a freak accident.

Now, 47-year-old Seth Kurpiel, a father of two, is able to walk again.

Kurpiel was a marathoner and an athlete when her suffered a serious spinal cord injury.

Doctors said fewer than five percent of people with his type of injury walk again.

And he is one of them.

It was a remarkable sight at the hospital as Seth Kurpiel walked unassisted after being paralyzed from the neck down only 15 months ago.

The 47-year-old dad from Great Neck fell from a swing set.

"I was lying on the ground, facing up, fully conscious. And it was the scariest moment of my life," Kurpiel said.

He said he couldn't feel anything, but he knew the injury was devastating.

The timing and proximity to North Shore University Hospital's Trauma Center was a game changer for Kurpiel.

He was at the hospital within 20 minutes, and then in the OR.

Doctors say he dislocated his spinal cord and even though they realigned it, there was less than a five percent chance he'd ever walk again.

"Even in the worst of it, when he was basically a quadriplegic, He would ask me, 'What can I do now?" Northwell Spinal Surgery Chief Dr. Sheng-fu Larry Lo said.

Kurpiel was a lover of all sports, ran marathons, triathlons, and was a double diamond skier.

"On the very first day, He told me, 'I wanna be pushed, and I'm here to work hard," his physical therapist Kiera Donovan said.

"I used so set my alarm for 5:42, and I'd be out the door by 6 o'clock after brushing my teeth, feeding my cats, drinking a pint of water, and going for a 5-mile run," Kurpiel said.

Determination was key but also the support from his wife Morgan, who is a registered nurse in oncology.

"The patients that I deal with that are facing the absolutely unimaginable, it just it puts everything in perspective," Morgan Kurpiel said.

"My goal, 6 months ago was I just wanted to hug my wife and my children," Kurpiel said.

He described himself as a math geek. Before the accident, he calculated risk for a living.

And ironically, he told his doctor it's beyond the numbers and it's possible to beat the odds.

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