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Article: Power cord: the spinal cord is your body's circuit city. Protect it.(YOUR BODY)(Cover story)
- Article from:
- Current Events, a Weekly Reader publication
- Article date:
- November 1, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Weekly Reader Corp. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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More than two years ago, Kelsey Harbert was swimming with some friends in Richmond, Va., when her life changed in an instant. Diving into the shallow end of the pool, she struck her head against the pool floor, fracturing the bones in her neck and damaging her spinal cord, causing paralysis from her chest down. Harbert, now 19, remembers waking up in the hospital the next day. "I could move my arms, but not my fingers and not my legs," she told Current Health.
About 12,000 people in the U.S. survive a spinal cord injury (SCI) each year, according to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center. And the majority of SCIs occur in young adults between the ages ...