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Article: Where Are We Now? Are There Cures in the Future?(Spinal Cord Injury, part 1)
- Article from:
- Palaestra
- Article date:
- June 22, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Challenge Publications Limited. 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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Dean was a handsome, athletic teenager with his whole life ahead of him. He had a high school sweetheart to whom he was devoted, with a bright future ahead. Then tragedy. One day he was diving off the beach in Newport Beach, California, but the water was too shallow. His head struck the bottom and his arms and legs suddenly floated away from his consciousness--Dean became a quadriplegic, his neck broken by the dive. At first he was on a respirator, hoping to feel or move his hands and legs again. But it was not to be. He underwent hospital rehabilitation, then three months of intensive rehabilitation to learn wheelchair skills and how to take care of himself, but he was ...