Doctors said they’d never walk. But at San Jose’s Timpany Center, they do.

Gerardo Garay is up to his chest in the crystal blue water of the pool at the Timpany Center in San Jose.

With both hands, he steadies Kenny Fernandez, who is surrounded by a flotation device, and has his feet planted firmly on the smooth white bottom of the pool.

“Up!” says Garay loudly, with a commanding confidence, and Fernandez raises his left foot. Garay counts to five, and then says “Right!” Fernandez lifts his left leg as Garay begins to count again.

“Keep it up, keep it up, keep it up!” implores Garay — and Fernandez does. They then begin to walk forward, taking slow and careful steps — a remarkable feat considering that both men were once told they would never walk.

Over at the side of the 100,000-gallon pool, Fernandez’s mom watches intently, not quite used to seeing this yet. Her son was born with a type of cerebral palsy that primarily affects the legs, and he lives with her at home, where she helps him with almost any movement he makes, like getting in and out of the shower.

For years, Esther Fernandez had heard about the Timpany Center, how it specializes in kinesiology — the study of movement — with a pool, fitness center and staff devoted to movement therapy. But as a working single mom, she couldn’t take her son there for weekly therapy until after the California Family Rights Act took effect in 2021, allowing her to leave work for half-hour sessions.

So watching him walking in water still comes with plenty of surprises, like when she suddenly hears Garay tell him, “Walk backwards.”

“Ooh, that’s kind of hard,” she says with a touch of nervousness. “He’s never done that one.”

But, in front of her eyes, he does.

The Timpany Center has been nothing short of a revelation for the Fernandez family.

“He gave up a little bit because the doctors would say that (he would never walk),” says Esther Fernandez. “But he’s pushing himself. He says, ‘I will walk.’ He’s trying to beat the odds.”

Garay knows all about that. Like Kenny Fernandez, he’s 37 years old — and doctors also told him he would never walk. Now, as a personal trainer at the Timpany Center, he’s helping others beat the odds.

On Dec. 9, 2006, while Garay living in Southern California, he was in a car accident. His friend fell asleep behind the wheel at 90 mph and Garay was thrown from the passenger seat, landing 30 feet from the car and resulting in a traumatic brain injury. He was in a coma for three months.

“They told my family, ‘He’ll never walk again. He’ll never talk again. He’ll never go to school again. He’ll never live alone again,’” said Garay.

But now, he’s doing all of those things, which he attributes to pushing himself beyond all expectations.

“Two months after the coma, I was in a wheelchair for eight months to a year,” he said. “Then six months of a walker, to a cane. Then three months with a cane, and after three months, nothing.”

Garay’s new life came with plenty of challenges. He was unable to drive, for instance, and people would often think he was drunk due to his slurred speech from the brain injury. Eventually, he moved to the South Bay, where he got his undergraduate degree in kinesiology at San Jose State University in 2017.

Though the Timpany Center was built in 1979, SJSU took over administrative duties in 2009, so Garay was aware of it — but he was doubtful he could work there due to his injury. Still, he applied and was hired as a receptionist. One day, he volunteered to teach a water fitness class that needed an instructor, and he has never looked back.

“Ever since my disability, a lot of opportunities for me have been gone,” he says. “That’s why I’m grateful they gave me the chance to work with people. Because a lot of people don’t have the experience with pain and injury that I have.”

Dr. Jennifer Schachner — an SJSU graduate with a master’s degree in kinesiology with adapted physical activity, and the Timpany Center’s program and operations director — says Garay’s work is an example of what makes the program unique.

“He’s teaching a new class for us, he’s training, he’s doing all these things,” said Schachner. “To see that, for me, is amazing. Not only are we able to help the community come in and get their exercise, we’re helping him find a purpose that he wasn’t sure he was ever going to have. How many places do that on both ends — on the employment side, and on the service side?”

The center’s commitment to providing the disabled community with a fully equipped facility for recovery work, movement therapy and all-around fitness goes back to its founder Charles Timpany, who worked for the Santa Clara County Office of Education. This was long before inclusion and accessibility were enforced by law.

“He was 10 years ahead of his time with this facility,” said Schachner. “He was in education, and he saw kids who were not thriving, and he wanted to build a place where kids with disabilities could thrive. Hence the Zero entry ramp, the family locker room, all the things that were built in the ’70s that people weren’t doing at that time — this was so innovative for that era.”

As it passed through management by different agencies, its administrators tried to keep the Timpany Center innovative. But there were tough years financially, and when Schachner arrived in 2017, no one was coordinating the staff and managing operations. She worked hard to bring the center to profitability — just as the pandemic hit.

“In February of 2020, we made money for the first time since I’d been there. At that point, we were talking about bringing on more staff and more programs. And literally two weeks later, we were shut down. It was the biggest punch in the face. It was like, are you kidding me?”

Schachner was the only staff member the center could afford to keep that year, and she did as much as she could for its clients through Zoom classes.

But since they’ve reopened in 2021, Schachner is on a mission again, which is what brought her to the Wish Book program this year. She hopes to raise $50,000 to update Timpany’s fitness center, which needs newer, more advanced equipment that will accommodate both users who have disabilities and those who do not — for instance, machines that switch easily from roll-up wheelchair access to seats. In the spirit of Charles Timpany’s distinctive vision of a full-service center, Schachner wants all of their disabled clients to be able to work out at the same facilities as their families.

Because it is part of SJSU (though off campus, next to the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center), many people don’t realize the Timpany Center is not funded by the university.

“People assume San Jose State is supplementing us, but we’re getting zero,” said Schachner. “We’re getting what we earn through donations and (the user fees that come in) through that front desk.”

For its clients, the Timpany Center is more than just a facility — it’s a community with a vast range of experiences.