Brooke Burns‘ neck brace looks awesome, but did you know that she almost died? “I’d never felt frail in my life before,” says Burns, who wore a (custom crystal-studded) neck brace for three months. “That was a real wake-up call,” she says. So what happened to her? Here is the story:

After a near-fatal swimming accident, the Baywatch star and single mom used water workouts to get stronger. Oh, and hotter too, just look at her body. Sizzling!

Brooke Burns had always loved the water. But water almost took her life on Nov. 11, 2005, when she dove into the pool and hit the bottom, blacking out briefly and breaking her neck.

“I woke up underwater,” recalls Burns, 30. A friend stabilized her, and within hours surgeons had placed titanium rods in her neck. She lay immobilized for a week, thinking, ‘Please, God, let me walk again,’” says Bums. She was lucky; she was not paralyzed.

Brooke Burns’ workout The iron-pumping workouts that shaped her size-2, 5′9″ body would be a thing of the past. To tone atrophied muscles and reduce impact on her joints, she returned to the pool (no diving this time) and after a year added stand-up paddle surfing.

Today she can do 200 laps and even join her child on the trampoline: “Before it was about being skinny. Now I’m strong.” [via]