2025 Brigham Stepping Strong Marathon Team: Dr. Lisa and Sam Teske

Seven Continents Club Finishers going for their Six World Marathon Major Star

In 2013, Boston was changed forever when a beautiful Marathon Monday turned into a senseless tragedy. Gillian Reny, then a high school senior, was one of 39 critically injured patients rushed to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where doctors and nurses saved her life and legs. With gratitude to the Brigham, the Reny family established The Gillian Reny Stepping Strong Center for Trauma Innovation to help other trauma patients regain their strength and ability to step strong once again.The Gillian Reny Stepping Strong Center for Trauma Innovation aims to catalyze trauma innovation for injured civilians and military heroes through multidisciplinary investigative collaborations across the continuum of trauma care, from prevention to treatment and recovery. Stepping Strong-funded initiatives are making a profound impact on trauma survivors and their families worldwide. The center has raised more than $30 million to fuel trauma research, advance education, build community, and inspire advocacy. But much more needs to be done.Trauma is a neglected global epidemic. According to the Centers for Disease Control:

Trauma is the number one cause of death for people 44 or younger, ahead of cancer and heart disease.
Traumatic injuries comprise 40% of visits to emergency departments.
More than $2 trillion per year is spent on decreased productivity, work loss, and medical costs due to traumatic injuries.
Despite the significant burden of trauma, less than 2% of federal funding is allocated toward trauma research, inhibiting our ability to understand how to prevent, treat, and improve recovery from traumatic injury.

The Stepping Strong Center remains committed to serving as a leader in trauma research and innovation to bridge this gap and advance the field of trauma care. When you support a member of the Brigham's Stepping Strong Boston Marathon Team, you are helping the center turn tragedy into hope for civilians and military heroes worldwide who have suffered devastating traumatic injuries.

Thank you for supporting this extraordinary group of runners and continuing to honor the Boston Strong spirit that still defines our city today. Learn more about the Stepping Strong Center for Trauma Innovation at the Brigham: www.bwhsteppingstrong.org Qualified runners are encouraged to join our team as well.

Highlighting two Stepping Strong team members is a married couple this year out of the Tampa Bay, Florida area, named Sam and Lisa Teske. They couldn’t be more proud or honored to be representing and promoting our Stepping Strong missions, as both these individuals are medical professionals, both first responders, and Lisa has overcome a personal traumatic injury that changed their lives. They know first hand how traumatic injury can directly affect all family members and not just the survivor. Sam and Lisa have turned their recovery from traumatic injury into a personal running around the world quest and have just completed running a marathon on each of the Seven Continents (both becoming official Seven Continents Club Finishers in 2024) and have only the Boston marathon left for their Six Star for the Abbott World Marathon Majors to also move onto becoming Six Star Finishers. Once they complete Boston, they will be entering an even more exclusive and smaller group of people, with only a handful of individuals achieving this feat for both genders, meaning only a few hundred people worldwide would likely fit this criteria of what they hope to do at trying to become a Seven Continents Club Finisher AND Six Star Finisher! Please help make their dream a reality while supporting an amazing cause in the process!

Brigham and Women's Hospital is a proud partner of the Bank of America Boston Marathon Official Charity Program.

Our Fundraising Page: Sam and Lisa Teske