LAKE CITY – One year ago, Mackenzie Gorden was leading the life of a typical teenager.

As a high school junior, she participated in cheerleading and dance team at South Central Calhoun High School and prepared for the recital at the studio in Carroll where she took dance lessons.

Just weeks after that recital, Gorden’s life changed when she swerved to miss a deer in the road and her truck rolled down a hill off a curvy road south of Lake City.

Gorden sensed something was wrong, but she didn’t know the extent of her injuries.

“I knew something had happened, something wasn’t right,” Gorden said. “I couldn’t move my fingers to reach my phone to call for help. I tried to honk the horn to get someone’s attention.”

Almost two hours passed before she was discovered. Continue Reading »

Almost 18 years after a devastating car accident that changed her life, Jaime Smitherman is using her personal tragedy to empower others disabled by injuries.

Smitherman was a 16-year-old cheerleader and honor student at Boaz High School when the accident occurred. The summer before her senior year, she and a friend were driving down Martling Road toward the Asbury community when their car went off one of the infamous double bridges into the creek below. Smitherman survived the accident but suffered a broken neck and spinal cord injury leaving her permanently paralyzed from the chest down. Continue Reading »

Last year Claire Lomas, who is paralysed from the chest down, was hailed as one of the most inspiring women in Britain when she completed the London Marathon in 17 days with the help of a bionic suit. Unable to feel her feet, she had to look down at every step she took over the 43km route, averaging 2.4km each day, often in the pouring rain.

She’s about to set off on her next physical challenge – a 644km hand cycle ride around England on a fundraising mission for Spinal Research and The Nicholls Foundation. The money she raises will go towards stem cell research. Continue Reading »

Ann Spungen, the principal investigator of the VA’s exoskeletal-assisted walking study, is excited about the ReWalk, a device invented by an Israeli scientist that allows paraplegics to walk again. ‘In the 22 years that I have been working in this field, it’s the most exciting intervention to come along.’

A research doctor at the Bronx VA is turning paralyzed vets into Iron Man.

And she’s doing it one man — and woman — at a time, with a robotic exoskeleton called the “ReWalk.” Continue Reading »

Spinal cord injury research at the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health will be accelerated by a 10-year, $20 million contribution from the Rick Hansen Foundation.

The International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD), a UBC-VCH research centre, will share the funds with the Rick Hansen Institute, which coordinates and assists spinal cord injury researchers around the world. Continue Reading »

There are moments in time that can forever alter your life. Evan Cronhardt’s life changed its course on April 10, 2008 as he was driving across an intersection near his Severn home. His Jeep was struck by a vehicle that may have been racing on Quarterfield Road.

Evan was thrown from his Jeep, then crushed as it rolled over on him.

He recalls the suffocating weight of of his Jeep and the tracheotomy he endured as paramedics worked to save his life.

When he awoke in a Baltimore hospital, his spine was crushed and his pelvis was broken, paralyzing him from the neck down. He started a long series of operations as doctors tried to repair his multiple broken vertebrae. Continue Reading »

CAMBRIDGE — Mark Pollock was accustomed to facing challenges most people would never dream of when he suffered a setback three years ago that left him broken in body, if not in spirit.

Blind since the age of 22, Pollock, a native of Northern Ireland, had conquered one frontier after another as an extreme adventure athlete. He’d run marathons in the Gobi Desert, in the shadow of Mt. Everest, and by the banks of the Dead Sea. In 2009, he became the first blind man to race to the South Pole on skis, a 22-day trek in temperatures that dipped into the minus-50s. A year later, Pollock co-skippered a boat in the Round Ireland Yacht Race, a grueling, 1,400-mile test of physical endurance and seamanship. Continue Reading »

BUTTE — Who hasn’t done what Calven Goza did? But unlike so many, Goza paid a steep price.

On May 3, 2012, Goza, a student at Montana Tech, was socializing with friends. It was the end of a long semester, and Goza and a few friends were drinking at area bars. Somewhere along the line, however, things went terribly wrong.

The five friends were traveling east on Highway 43 between Dewey and Divide in a 2003 Grand Prix when the car hit a rock wall on the south side of the roadway. The car went airborne for about 68 feet and rolled several times. Continue Reading »

Paul Erway recognizes a big challenge, and he’s not one to back down from it.

Erway, a paraplegic since a car accident in 1980, is one of three members of the “50 Ability Marathon Team” affiliated with the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation dedicated to curing spinal cord injury.

Erway and two other wheelchair athletes, Grant Berthiaume and Aaron Roux, are attempting to compete in 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 weeks.

Sunday’s Covenant Health Knoxville Marathon will be the 13th marathon for the trio.

“It’s a big challenge,” Erway said. “You always need to have something to shoot for. Everybody needs goals.” Continue Reading »

New treatments leverage “neuroplasticity,” the nervous system’s innate ability to repair itself

When Christopher Reeve became quadriplegic, there was little hope for patients with spinal cord injury. Now researchers are combining what they know about the central nervous system’s ability to rewire and regrow with a new understanding of the hidden smarts of the spinal cord to dramatically improve treatments.

Even the most devastating spinal cord injuries usually do not completely sever the link between the brain, spine and the rest of the body. Scientists are now finding ways to make the most of the remaining connections using a variety of technologies. Studies on electrical stimulation and locomotor training (a treatment that relies on human or robotic assistance during a walking exercise) suggest that it is possible to regrow damaged neuronal circuits in the brain and spine and recover some voluntary control. Some of these studies find that circuits in the spinal cord itself can be coaxed into helping the body move again. Continue Reading »