ENCINITAS —— Chelsea Good, a teen from Temecula who doctors doubted would walk again after her spine was crushed in a car accident, stood tall and strong Friday at a reunion party.

For the third straight year, Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas hosted a luncheon for former patients of the hospital's Recovery Center.

The center serves about 500 patients a year, nearly a quarter of them stroke survivors, said Diane Romitl, the center's director.

Brain injuries and injuries from car crashes also send great numbers of patients to rehabilitation, where therapy lasts at least three hours a day, she said.

Good, 18, said she remembers it well.

She also remembers her accident, exactly one year ago Friday, when she was ejected from the Ford Explorer she was driving to Temecula Valley High School.

She spent 21 days in intensive care in Riverside before transferring to the Rehabilitation Center at Scripps Encinitas.

Doctors told her mother, Janae Good, it would be a miracle if her daughter were to walk again. Nobody told that to Chelsea, though, who spent five weeks recovering in Encinitas.

A scrapbook Chelsea Good brought to the reunion documented her recovery, with photos of the crumpled Explorer and the scar where doctors mended her crushed spine.

Another shows her boyfriend, bedecked in a tuxedo, bringing ice cream and a corsage to the bedside of his homecoming date.

Above all, Chelsea was determined to walk in her commencement ceremony to collect her diploma, which she did.

After the September accident, she remained in a wheelchair until March.

Despite her injuries, which also included fractures to her pelvis, femur and clavicle, she has healed enough to work two jobs, at JC Penney and at a marketing firm, and to attend a junior college near her Temecula home.

Last week, she rode dune buggies in the desert.

"My hip still hurts sometimes and I still need to get a screw out of my knee," she said. "The worst thing about the rehab therapy was having to get up early to do it."

For Josh Ayers, 18, the worst thing about rehab was no solid food for four months, he said.

The teen from Carmel Valley, who also received serious injuries in an automobile accident, made up for that Friday as he mowed through a plate piled high with slices of pizza.

Ayers figures he will be back on the basketball court before long. In the meantime, he cracked jokes and practiced a secret handshake with the staffers who cared for him during three months of rehabilitation.

The Rehabilitation Center employs a staff of 150, said Romitl, the director.

Patients moving toward wellness wear street clothes, not pajamas, to a communal dining room. Patients take outings in a hospital van to places such as bookstores.

A most therapeutic environment, Romitl said, is the rehab garden, where patients can handle the earth and enjoy the sun's warmth. Volunteers from the San Dieguito Garden Club also participate in the gardening.

Romitl said that many of the center's patients experienced accidents or medical emergencies that brought overnight change to their lives.

One such patient is 58-year-old Glen Leesman of Solana Beach.

Last November, Leesman was tidying up his apartment for a dinner date and playing with his cat when dizziness and a pounding headache caused him to keel over.

"I called my friend and said I had to cancel but asked if she could come over because I couldn't stand up," Leesman said.

Doctors determined he had suffered a stroke, even though he had low cholesterol, low blood pressure, was not overweight and exercised regularly.

For those reasons, and for his general good health, Leesman didn't even check into the hospital until the next morning. When he did, he stayed for 21 days, and for many of those days, he could not regain his balance.

"At first, I thought it was just an episode," Leesman said, "a dizzy spell, something I was going to get over."

Contact staff writer Adam Kaye at (760) 943-2312 or akaye@nctimes.com.