Suffering from low blood sugar while driving her diminutive Datsun down a busy road, Christine Pomponio-Pate simply passed out. The next two days are lost from her memory, but six years of difficult often painful recovery have filled in any blanks about what happened and how serious it was.

Her car had crossed the median and met a truck head-on. Due to mechanical failure, her seatbelt was not fastened, leaving nothing to prevent her body from exiting through the windshield. Her face slammed into the steering wheel on the way out. By all accounts, that could have been her last living moment on Earth, but miraculously she survived.

The year was 1994. Pomponio-Pate had nine of her front teeth knocked out in that accident, and her top lip was completely severed. The long road back wasn't easy. She was out of work for two months and it took six years and 11 surgeries beyond that to reconstruct the beautiful figure pro who appears onstage today.

They took skin from the inside of my mouth to reconstruct my upper lip," she recalls. Aside from a tiny scar on said lip, you would never guess what the 31-year-old former soccer player went through on and after that fateful day.

On the day of the crash, her teeth were removed from the back of the roof of her mouth and moved forward that was done without anesthesia because of the concussion she suffered. For a particularly scary period of time, she was in danger of losing a leg. "It took more than two years until I felt normal again," she says. "I was self-conscious about the stitches and wires, but I kept it in perspective and was still thankful for the outcome. I could have been paralyzed or a lot worse."

Always athletic, the sudden change to a sedentary existence was hard to take. Pomponio-Pate couldn't step back on the pitch, but instead she stepped into the weight room to quench her thirst for activity. By 1999, that training led to her first contest, the Colorado State Fitness Championships. Success as immediate, as she won the fitness overall title. Moving on to the NPC national level, she competed at the 1999 USA Championships and the 2000 Nationals. At the 2001 Team Universe, she won the short class and earned a pro card.

Although able to hold her own on a fitness stage, the routine rounds were challenging. "I was a backyard gymnast," she laughs. "My mandatories were strong but I wasnt a well-trained gymnast, so my routines were entertaining but pretty basic." Fortunately, hope was on the horizon in the form of the pro figure division, which debuted in 2003.

Her first year in the big leagues as a struggle. In 2004, however, fate smiled on her. She followed up a sixth at the California Pro Figure Championships with a runner-up finish at the New York Pro Figure. To top off the year, she cracked the top six at the sports biggest event, the Figure Olympia, and hasnt looked back since, with her 2005 and 2006 competitive forays highlighted by wins at the 2005 Tournament of Champions and the 2006 California Pro Figure.

Now one of the top athletes in her sport, Pomponio-Pate plans to continue facing off against the best in the world, having just placed 4th at the 2006 Figure Olympia. The Vyotech athlete is branching out into other areas too, currently working on the full launch of her new Web site ChristinePomponio.com while also starring in local television commercials.

All in all, its thus far proving to be a happy ending to what could have been a truly tragic tale Pomponio-Pate has come a long way from that horrific head-on collision, with hopefully more amazing things to come.