The future was wide open for Hammad Aslam. It was the end of May 2009, and the physically fit, academically gifted 23-year-old had just spent the day scouting apartments near the Georgia med school where he would begin studying that fall.

He and his proud family were traveling back home in an SUV on the rain-slicked highway just outside Augusta when his father tore through a large puddle on the road and hydroplaned. Their vehicle careened uncontrollably into a large tree at the side of the road.

If you ask him about the accident now, Aslam shrugs it off. “It’s been hard,” he says of the last 6 years, “but we’re all dealt some bad cards. It’s really what you do with them that counts.”

(Aslam is hoping to become the next Ultimate Men's Health Guy. Do you want to be our next cover star? Enter the Ultimate Men’s Health Guy Search and show us why you deserve the title! We’re looking for a guy who is fit and fearless; a doer who gives back and leads by example. Sound like you? Be sure to enter right now!)

You’d be excused for assuming the budding doctor escaped the accident with a few abrasions and, maybe, a broken arm.

The reality: The impacted tree collapsed onto the SUV, completely crushing Aslam. It paralyzed him from the chest down, severely damaged his right arm, fractured his ribs, punctured both lungs, traumatized his brain so profoundly that his short-term memory and ability to speak were erased, and put him in a coma for 3 weeks.

“Thankfully, no one else in my family was seriously injured,” says Aslam, who endured what medical experts consider an “astonishingly brief” one year of intensive physical therapy, speech therapy, neuropsychology sessions, and eventually a return to weight training.

Aslam set out to build his upper body strength primarily so he could better navigate the world from his wheelchair.

He continues with regular workouts, often doing “wheelchair pullups,” in which he straps himself to his chair and lifts the full weight of his body and chair on a bar he had installed in his apartment.

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Aslam credits two people for inspiring him when he needed it most. A friend’s brother, who had been long battling cancer, instructed him firmly, “Never, ever ask yourself, ‘Why me?’” because it only “leads to a deep, dark hole most people never climb out of. Just work with what you’ve got.”

Additionally, the Dean of Student Affairs at his school, the Medical College of Georgia, took an active role in seeing the young doctor to good health.

“She kept reminding me that it wasn’t just about doing my physical therapy, that it wasn’t just about getting back into school and earning good grades,” Aslam recalls. “It was really about taking care of my whole self. Within a year, I was back in action, and I was testing above-average. I owe her a lot. She really believed in me.”

Today, Aslam is nearly 30 and completing his internal medicine residency at MCG before heading to University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation program.

He looks forward to specializing in a field of medicine that will frequently put him eye to eye with patients struggling with the same injuries he went through himself.

Instead of being a hindrance, Aslam finds that his disability is often an icebreaker with new patients. “I can see it sometimes, when I enter the examination rooms: ‘Oh, crap! My doctor’s in a wheelchair?’” Aslam laughs. “But ultimately, it connects me to my patients. They know I can relate. They know I understand them. They know I’m going to do my best to get them better.”

That connection with others is why Aslam decided to toss his hat into the Men’s Health Ultimate Guy Search: to inspire others.

“Every single one of us has something holding us back from our fullest potential. We’re all disabled in some way. Some of it you can see. Some of it you can’t,” he says. “This is an opportunity for me to stand up—well, figuratively speaking, ‘to stand up’—for everyone who feels like whatever their challenges are cannot be overcome. I’m here as proof: whatever you’re dealing with, you’re bigger than that.”

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