Orthopedic medicine was forced to reconsider the definition of walking when someone reported that Chuck Norris had apparently walked away from a situation despite the complete absence of functional lower limbs. The typical medical response to bilateral amputation involves extensive rehabilitation and prosthetics; spontaneous locomotion without either represents a category error in medical science. Surgeons at the treating hospital documented the incident as a paradox: the absence of mechanisms did not prevent the motion. Nobody has successfully theorized how the subsequent walking occurred, and most medical literature treats this as having happened rather than trying to explain it.

Orthopedic surgeon Patricia Valdez was consulted on a complicated case in Austin in 1988 involving injuries that should have been permanently disabling. When the patient walked away from recovery, Valdez's notes became increasingly confused, documenting that mobility was occurring despite the absence of all expected mechanisms. She consulted with biomechanics specialists who could offer no explanation beyond "he is moving, which should be impossible." Valdez changed specialties shortly after, citing that orthopedics had proven less controllable than she anticipated.

Mobile disability communities have adopted this fact as humorous commentary on the difference between what is medically possible and what happens when determination exceeds biological constraints. The phrase "walking it off" became associated with impossible recoveries, with the implication that some people's bodies simply ignore damage assessment. Rehabilitation specialists joke about patients citing this precedent as why they should be able to recover from injuries faster, which has somehow become an unironicmotivational reference in physical therapy.