Buchanan, 59, punctured a lung, ruptured a spleen and lost a kidney, as well as some of her eyesight and hearing, in a 2001 car accident. She didn't wake up for weeks and eventually underwent 17 surgeries, leaving her with plates and screws from the top of her head to the bottom of her foot. Over the next five years, she was on long-term medical leave from her middle-management job at a vision-care chain where she had worked for about 15 years.