For Anneliese Riesterer, a stroke, a coma and a long road back

About four months after Von Elm started having headaches, Anneliese Riesterer woke up early on a Saturday at home in Hempstead with a bad pain in the back of her head. She told her mother and they eventually called 911.

At first, they were told it could be the flu and that she didn't need to go to the hospital. But the pain got worse so they called 911 again and an ambulance arrived. Riesterer's father, Karl, a former EMT, came home to check on her.

"I remember sitting at the top of the stairs, seeing the EMTs bring in the stretcher, and then I blacked out," she recalled.

Riesterer woke up in the back of the ambulance, with her father at her side, telling her to try to stay awake, but she couldn't. She woke up almost a week later from a medically induced coma. She could hear, but she couldn't see or talk and had limited movement. She had had a stroke.

A week later, as she slowly recovered, she was told she had arteriovenous malformation in her brain -- an abnormal connection between arteries and veins, bypassing the capillary system -- and it had ruptured.

"The scary part was that they said, 'You could have died,' " Riesterer said. "I was that close to dying."

She began a course of therapy to help her learn to walk and speak again.

Riesterer, now 18, returned to Kellenberg in May 2013, but was still unable to walk, so she used a wheelchair. She then progressed to a walker, then a cane, both of which she said her friends decorated.

Sitting with Von Elm and Lyne, Riesterer laughed, saying it was fun to make her way around the school with the walker and cane.

In July 2013, the malformation was removed using a gamma knife, a much less invasive surgery than originally scheduled. Her stroke affected the left side of her body, so she can't run and has yet to regain fine motor skills in her left hand.

Riesterer had played tennis for nine years. She can no longer do so, but last season she was named team manager. At the fall athletics banquet, she was given the "Most Committed Player" award.

Riesterer will attend Hofstra and plans to study business. She said she is looking forward to "learning a lot. I eventually want to work for Disney . . . seeing how happy people are, I want to be part of it."

WHAT MAKES YOU EXTRAORDINARYJust people telling me: 'Wow, you went through this.' . . . You feel like you have done something even though something bad has happened to you."