A woman named Kelly Thomas had woken up in a Florida Hospital four years back and she could not recollect the car accident, which had resulted in her being unable to walk. An active student of a college, who had even taken part in barrel racing in rodeos, went over to Kentucky for one year to get into a research study, which she hoped would help in getting her spinal cord retrained on how to walk.
In the month of February, a trainer who was all the while, scooting along the floor at the feet of Thomas, thereby helping her to move the legs and get her feet placed on a walker, completely stopped and could stand up.
Kelly Thomas had got alarmed and hence went on to ask, what she was trying to do. To this, the trainer, Rebekah Morton said to her that she was doing it herself; hence she no longer needs her support.
There was hesitation in Thomas but then finally managed to take a step on her own, followed by another.
Kelly Thomas recalled that it just seemed to happen. She has been putting in a lot for hard work for the last four years and now that things have worked out, this has made her really emotional.
She is now aged 23 years and one among several individuals with injuries to spinal cord, who are now able to stand, take steps and of course, in her case, be able to walk without any support, all because of a combined therapy coming through due to an experiment. In a research study conducted at the University of Louisville, Thomas along with three other had got a device that had been implanted surgically on their spinal cords in order to stimulate the electrical activity within, which was also accompanied by several months of daily physical therapy. The researchers from the University of Louisville had published a report in the New England Journal of Medicine that the two of the patients could even stand and take quite minimum steps right at the end of the study and the other two were able to walk in an independent manner.
