Meet Meredith: Beginning Again

A life-altering injury does not mean that life stops. Nearly a decade after a spinal cord injury (SCI) changed her world, Meredith Koch has redefined what it means to move forward. From a thriving career to athletic achievements and motherhood, she has turned every challenge into an opportunity.

A New Chapter Begins

On May 29, 2015, Meredith was helping a friend move a piano from a pickup truck. The piano slipped, landing on Meredith’s back and shattering her first lumbar vertebrae, fracturing her sternum, and leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. Rushed to a Vermont hospital, she underwent an eight-hour emergency surgery, followed by three days in the ICU and four days in a medical-surgical inpatient unit. When it came time for rehabilitation, her spinal surgeon insisted she be transferred to Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital—a place her family had never heard of before, but which would soon become a critical part of her journey.

When Meredith arrived at Spaulding, she was overwhelmed with fear and uncertainty. As she was wheeled in, tears streaming down her face, a paramedic reassured her: “You’re where you need to be.” Those words proved true. While the first 24 hours were difficult, her attending physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, ensured that Meredith’s care progressed at a pace that respected both her medical needs and her emotional state. “It’s dehumanizing to be in the hospital with a spinal cord injury,” Meredith shares. “But at Spaulding, they saw me as a person. They recognized I was a young woman whose life and career had been put on hold, and they treated me with dignity.”

Her care team’s compassion and expertise fueled her rehabilitation. At Spaulding, therapy wasn’t just about regaining function—it was about regaining identity. She was given autonomy over her care, working in partnership with her care team to drive her recovery. “Throughout the four weeks that I was at Spaulding, every day was progress, every day they celebrated the small wins. Some days that was hard, but they were pushing me to do things I didn’t even know I could do,” Meredith recalls.

A Spark of Hope

Despite the progress she was making, Meredith struggled with the uncertainty of what her future would look like. Would she ever return to work? Would she ever feel independent again?

Then, a single moment changed her perspective. Her father, Richard, brought her a brochure featuring Dr. Cheri Blauwet, a Spaulding physician and fellow woman with paraplegia. “Look, Meredith,” he said. “There’s a doctor in a wheelchair working here.” Meredith, a medical professional herself, was invigorated. “I thought, if she can be a doctor, I can go back to being a clinical specialist in the operating room,” she says.

Fifteen weeks after her injury, she did just that. Returning to work was daunting. She had to relearn nearly everything, between the training and the physical and logistical demands of her role. Personal doubts loomed, but with the support of her colleagues and family, and an unrelenting belief in herself, she pushed through. Seven months post-injury, she was back at work in the OR.

Meredith’s experiences reshaped her career in unexpected ways. As a clinical specialist training patients with new medical devices, she discovered a new strength—connection. “Because I had an apparent disability, I could connect with patients in a way no one else could,” she explains. “I understood their fears, their frustrations, and the challenges they face. That made all the difference.” Over the years, Meredith has continued to rise through the ranks, excelling in senior engineering and leadership roles.

Reclaiming Her Life with Adaptive Sports

Athletics had always been part of Meredith’s life—ballet, softball, field hockey, skiing, and endurance sports shaped her childhood and college years. After her injury, she feared that chapter was over. Her therapists aligned her rehabilitation with her athletic nature, getting her into the therapy pool as soon as her stitches healed. She practiced walking with braces in the water, regaining confidence in her body. Soon, she was on an adaptive bike. “The first time my therapists got me out on a bike, I started sobbing,” she remembers. “Not because I was in pain, but because it was the first time I felt like me again.”

That feeling never faded. She continued adaptive cycling after being discharged, joining Spaulding’s Riders Club. Through her participation in adaptive sports, she made lifelong friends who supported each other through the challenges of living with disabilities. “Through adaptive sports, I made the shift that I didn’t have to be scared of having a spinal cord injury,” says Meredith. “I saw people with SCI who were decades into having them who had careers and families, and women with SCI who had children post-injury.”

Years later, while on a bike ride together, Meredith’s now-husband Ryan proposed to her—a full-circle moment of love and resilience. Today, they ride as family with their two-year-old son, Grant. Skiing was another rediscovered joy. Through Spaulding’s Adaptive Sports Centers, she first tried monoskiing, then learned to four-track ski independently. This past winter, she experienced another emotional milestone—skiing beside Grant as he took his first runs down the bunny hill.

As the tenth anniversary of her injury approaches, Meredith reflects on her journey with pride. “I made a choice when I got paralyzed that my obituary was not going to read, ‘died from a piano falling on top of her,’” she says. “There was so much left for me to do in the world.” She has kept the promise she made to herself. Meredith has proven that while her injury changed her path, it never defined her destination.

Paying It Forward

In recognition of Meredith’s ten-year milestone, her family has generously pledged to match Spaulding Day of Giving gifts dollar for dollar, up to $10,000, in support of Spaulding Adaptive Sports.

Donations help Spaulding invest in our dedicated staff and clinicians, in Spaulding’s specialized programs like Adaptive Sports, and in state-of-the-art equipment and technology that makes the Spaulding experience so unique. Your gifts help Spaulding meet the needs of patients like Meredith during their complex and intensive rehabilitation journeys.

With your support, we can make more recoveries like Meredith’s possible.