Steps to a Cure

Kevin Everett, the Buffalo Bills player who was paralyzed after breaking his neck on the football field, will soon walk. That’s what doctors said as he was transferred from Buffalo to a Houston hospital today, less than two weeks after sustaining a life-threatening spinal cord injury.

“Soon… they’re going to stand him up,” Dr. Barth Green, president of The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, told the Associated Press. “(Doctors are) very confident he’ll be walking very soon… in the next days or weeks, not months.”

Incredible news. Some would consider Everett’s progress a miracle.

But it’s not. Continue Reading »

Everett’s mom worried but optimistic

At the bedside of paralyzed Bills player, sheembodies can-do spirit for the long road back

She arrived at Millard Fillmore Hospital dressed in her Sunday best, which in Buffalo during autumn means a red Bills sweat shirt and jeans. Kevin Everett’s mother has been in Western New York for a full week since he suffered a spinal cord injury that threatened his life and ended his football career.

Patricia Dugas has experienced the gamut of emotions. She was upbeat and laughing Sunday, grateful for the support her son has received since he crumpled to the turf in Ralph Wilson Stadium last weekend. His hospital walls are lined with pictures and letters of encouragement from football fans and children across the country. Continue Reading »

Heads up! Tackling the wrong way can lead to catastrophic injuries

CONYERS, Ga. – Chad Frazier has seen it hundreds of times: Two guys run into each other at full speed, and one of them doesn’t get up right away.

The crowd falls silent. The other players drop to a knee, whispering a prayer and trying to shake the very sobering reality that it could be any of them stretched out on the ground. Everyone strains their eyes, hoping to glimpse even the tiniest sign of movement. Continue Reading »

Cooling seen aiding player’s recovery

Doctor: Action may have helped avert paralysis

Doctors initially said that Buffalo Bills tight end Kevin Everett had little chance of walking again after his devastating spinal cord injury in last Sunday’s football game against the Denver Broncos. But just two days later, Everett was moving his arms and legs in what one doctor involved in his care called “a minor miracle.”

Everett’s ongoing recovery may stem in part from an experimental cooling technique performed moments after the accident, researchers say. Team doctor Andrew Cappuccino decided to inject an ice-cold saline solution into Everett’s veins as he was being rushed to the hospital in hopes of preventing the death of nerve cells that follows a severe spinal injury.

“I was trying to pull out all the stops to help this young man,” Cappuccino said Wednesday at a news conference. Continue Reading »

Everett’s injury latest in long list of devastating hits

EDMONTON – If Buffalo Bills tight end Kevin Everett is experiencing the “totally spectacular, totally unexpected” recovery from what the team physician earlier had termed a “catastrophic” spinal cord injury, then that is unreservedly wonderful and welcome news.

Dr. Andrew Cappucino, the Bills’ orthopedic surgeon whose initial diagnosis had been grim, was quoted Tuesday saying: “We may be witnessing a minor miracle.”

It can go either way in these sorts of violent collisions that will happen from time to time in football. So, Everett voluntarily moving his arms and legs represents hope where there seemingly was little to none a day or two before. Continue Reading »

Miracles Do Exist for Spinal Cord Injuries

Not so very long ago, injuring your spinal cord meant paralysis, perhaps death. The higher the injury, the worse the prognosis. For instance, if your spinal cord was injured in the neck or Cervical region, your chances of recovery were nil. However, injuries in the lower Lumbar had a much greater chance of partial recovery.

Today, however, medical miracles are around every corner, or so they were for the Buffalo Bills football star, Kevin Everett, who injured his cervical spinal cord a few days ago during a heads down tackle.

The initial assessment was grim, as they carried Kevin off the field. However, rapid and aggressive treatment may have saved him. The spinal cord was cooled with intravenous fluids, steroids were administered to decrease inflammation and swelling, and oxygen was given to the oxygen starved nerves within the spinal cord itself. Continue Reading »

HealthFirst – Spinal cord injuries

UNDATED (WJRT) – When it comes to getting people moving again after spinal injuries, timing may be key.

HealthFirst reporter Leslie LoBue says new research shows that when a patient has surgery could play a big role in the quality of recovery.

Timing can impact how much movement in the hands, fingers or even your limbs will come back after spinal cord surgery. Continue Reading »

Stem-cell therapy: Cure or hoax in China?

‘Some get miracles’; others are skeptical

The website for Beike Biotechnology bursts with stories that can only be categorized as medical miracles: a Paraplegic can move his legs again; a man with muscular dystrophy can carry a cup of water, a stroke victim can speak.

These tales of ailments treated come from all over the world – England, Hungary, Russia, Canada – and back the healing claims of a controversial Chinese treatment that purports to cure the incurable.

“I saw miracles every day I was there,” says Leslie Wells, who flew to China in April, 11 years after a swimming pool accident rendered her arms and legs limp. “It can be a crapshoot. Some people get miracles, some people get nothing.” Continue Reading »

Resident says city is balking on wheelchair ramp promise

Pamela Bell has been disabled for more than three years.

When a spinal cord injury eventually made the Jacksonville resident wheelchair bound a year and a half ago, Bell found herself living in an apartment not properly devised for her new situation.

On a fixed income, Bell said she has had to look everywhere for assistance to help modify her home. When all hope seemed lost, she found help in the city of Jacksonville’s Community Development Division.

But when the division’s extended promises of a free wheelchair access ramp turned into a $4,500 bill, Bell decided to file a complaint against the city. Continue Reading »

The gift that keeps on giving

Matthew Nagle only lived 27 years, but his example of encouraging disabled people to strive for a better way of life by participating in experimental treatments for Quadriplegia lives on.

Matthew died of a blood infection on July 23 at Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton. He had been in a coma for nearly a week prior to his death.

“I can’t imagine how he got through each day, but he had empathy for other people in need,” his father Patrick, a retired Cambridge police sergeant, said while standing on a patio deck built by his son Michael for Matthew’s convenience. Continue Reading »