Marine, mom, medalist: Sumner excels while helping others

"Life to me should be about service," Sumner says. "It's more important what we do for others than for ourselves."

A life-long athlete, Sumner played field hockey and ran track in college at ECU and Appalachian State. She enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1983.

"The Marine Corps paid for my grad school," she said. “I went to grad school as part of the foreign officer program in the Marine Corps. It was for National Security Affairs and additional language training in Russian.”

During her 23-year career in the Marines, Sumner served as an intelligence officer and foreign area officer, retiring in 2006 as a lieutenant colonel.

But she was only halfway through that career when a life-changing injury forced her to rethink it.

While helping clean up trees after Hurricane Fran at her mother's house in 1996, Sumner fell.

"I was 25 feet up, trying to top out a damaged tree that was hung up and my safety line broke," she said. "I broke my spine."

She was left partially paralyzed from the waist down.

"With my injury, I still have one leg that fatigues rapidly, but is fairly strong," she said.

Sumner, determined to stay in the Marines, returned to Camp Lejuene in a body brace, braces and with a walker.

"I told them I had one leg good enough to hop three miles," she said. “Six months later, with aggressive physical therapy and a personal trainer, I managed to, wearing a Forest Gump-looking brace, managed to run and pass a full Marine Corps physical fitness test.”

Satisfied that goal was met, she set herself another: She adopted four children and poured her energy into their needs. After her retirement, she opened a gym, helping others with fitness and rehabilitation.

"I worked with clients from complete full-bodied to completely disabled and tried to get everyone more fit, more functional," she said. "Since I had become so functional after a spinal cord injury, and I had a physical education degree, I would be able to be helpful. And it helped me to earn the spending money I needed for family vacations and to take care of my kids.”

To take care of herself, Sumner competes in adaptive sports competitions all over the country. And she wins, all the time, thanks to her extraordinary work ethic.

"I take care of my children. My sister and I are guardians for our mother. We take care of her. And this is for me," she says, looking around at the medals she's won – at the Warrior Games, as a member of Team Marine Corps, at the National Veteran Wheelchair Games.

"When I’m not broken, I try to schedule at least one competitive event a month,” she said.

That work ethic and the altruism behind it is rubbing off.

Her adopted son, Buck, says, "It always makes me happy to serve others, and I learned that from my mom."