September 13th, 2017, forever changed Ellie Skromme’s life.
“I was basically living this high of graduated teenage life,” said Ellie. “I had a tire blow out. The truck rolled six times, and I went through my driver-side window.”
The car landed on top of Ellie, severely damaging her back along with other painful injuries.
“It gave me a spinal cord injury, which was literally the weight of the pick up on my vertebrae caused it to burst fracture,” said Ellie.
Ellie was 17 years old when doctors told her she would never be able to walk again. At a young age, she needed to adjust to a new life ahead of her.
“Being told you’re never going to walk again,” said Elle, “as a very active girl, I rode horses and played volleyball in high school.”
But that’s when Ellie found SCI FIT on Instagram.
Ellie was living in South Monterey County at the time and would make the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Fresno. She told Steve Nava and Mitch Ebner, the co-owners of SCI-FIT Fresno, that her goal was to walk and stand again.