"Writhing in pain inside a dilapidated hospital in the Dominican Republic, Brooklyn native Jessica Mazzone didn't think she'd ever walk again.
The 28-year-old flight attendant had fallen three stories from a hotel balcony on the eastern tip of the island, snapping her spine and shattering her left leg.
Local doctors insisted they had to operate on her at the hospital. A journey to the U.S. would almost certainly leave her paralyzed, Mazzone was told. Her family feared the worst until a relative suggested they contact a famed surgeon who had successfully treated a window washer after he fell 47 stories last year.
Days later, on Nov. 14, Mazzone was under the knife of Dr. John Boockvar at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. The next day Boockvar delivered the good news that Mazzone never thought she'd hear again: She would walk again."
