Tony Danza was thinking about the recent death of his mother while he was skiing in Utah, and the result was an accident that almost left him paralyzed.
The former star of "Who's the Boss?" and "Taxi" is still recovering from the December skiing accident in which he fractured and dislocated his spine."I woke up in a funk that day," Danza says in this week's TV Guide. "I had lost my mother in June. It was the first Christmas without her and she was on my mind. I wasn't really into skiing, actually, which is a bad thing when you're on skis."
He fell shortly after starting down a hill and "woke up on a respirator."
Doctors later showed him X-rays of three other people with similar injuries, all of whom are paraplegics now.
"I've got five screws and three pins in me - I'm setting off alarms in airports all over the country - but I'm walking now and my doctors say it's a miracle," Danza said.
His future career may be on hold, but Danza stars in a remake of the 1951 classic "Angels in the Outfield," which was filmed before the accident and opens July 13.