In 2007, Amanda Perla was one month away from graduating high school when a car accident changed the course of her life in an instant. Her friend fell asleep at the wheel. Amanda broke her neck and nearly severed her spinal cord completely, leaving her paralyzed from the chest down and facing a future that doctors said would never include walking or living independently. What happened next is not just a story of personal recovery. It is the story of a woman who turned her own experience of paralysis into a resource for hundreds of others facing the same diagnosis.
About Amanda Perla
Amanda Perla is a speaker, social media adviser, head of client services at NextStep Orlando, and Brand Ambassador for Myolyn, a company that uses functional electrical stimulation to support therapeutic exercise and functional recovery for people living with paralysis. She is also, by any measure, someone who refused to accept the limits she was handed.
Following her accident and six months of inpatient rehabilitation, Amanda was diagnosed as a C6 incomplete quadriplegic. Doctors told her she would never walk or live an independent life. They suggested to her mother, Liza, that Amanda be placed in a nursing home. Liza's response was to quit her job and dedicate herself entirely to finding a better path forward.
That path led them to Project Walk, an intensive exercise-based recovery center in California. Amanda and Liza made multiple trips across the country for treatment and were so struck by what they experienced that they began exploring whether something similar could exist closer to home. In 2009, they made it happen. NextStep Orlando opened its doors as one of the first facilities of its kind in Florida, affiliated with the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation NeuroRecovery Network and now one of four NextStep locations nationwide.
Amanda continues her own recovery journey while helping others navigate theirs. In her spare time she surfs, skis, and pursues adaptive sports of all kinds. She and her husband, Matt Jereczek, are members of The7line, a New York Mets fan club that travels the country watching games at ballparks across the US.
Living with a Spinal Cord Injury
A spinal cord injury occurs when damage to the spinal cord results in a loss of function, sensation, or mobility. The level and completeness of the injury determines how much function is affected. A C6 incomplete injury, like Amanda's, means the injury occurred at the sixth cervical vertebra in the neck region, and that some sensation or movement below the injury site remains, even if significantly limited.
For Amanda, the physical reality of her injury was profound. But equally significant was what she was told about her future. Being told at seventeen years old that you will never walk, never live independently, and should consider a nursing home is not just a medical prognosis. It is a statement about what your life is worth. Amanda and her mother chose not to accept it as the final word, and their refusal to do so ultimately created a recovery resource that has given that same choice to hundreds of other people.
NextStep Orlando and the Power of Community Recovery
NextStep Orlando was born directly out of Amanda's experience as a person living with paralysis and her family's frustration with the limits of what was being offered. The facility provides intensive, activity-based recovery programs for people living with spinal cord injuries and other forms of paralysis, grounded in the belief that recovery does not stop at the point where traditional medicine says it does.
As speaker representative and head of client services, Amanda brings something to her work that no training program can provide: she knows exactly what it feels like to sit across from someone who has just been told their life as they knew it is over. And she knows what it means to have someone tell you otherwise.
