Device Helps Paralyze People Walk Again.
HOWELL: An amazing medical development to tell you about in the state of Florida. A young woman was paralyzed four years ago, and doctors told her that she would never walk again. But a breakthrough technology has changed all of that. Our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has this story for you.</s>ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: At age 19, Kelly Thomas a young woman raised on a cattle farm, an avid equestrian was injured in a rollover truck accident.</s>KELLY THOMAS, PARALYSIS PATIENT: I broke my neck at C7-T1 and got a spinal cord injury.</s>COHEN: She was paralyzed from the chest down. Her doctors told her she would never walk again. But in February, three years after her accident, Thomas defied them all, taking these first steps. How did that feel?</s>THOMAS: I cried.</s>COHEN: This small device, put her back on her feet. Surgically implanted, it sends electrical impulses to her spine. They mimicked the signals her brain used to send before her accident. And after seven months, Thomas has made even more progress. She can walk around her house, walk into her bathroom and see her reflection standing in the mirror. She can walk along her front porch or through grass in her yard that's harder to traverse.</s>THOMAS: I can walk into the library or walk into dinner with friends. It makes me feel normal again.</s>COHEN: She showed me how. Your simulator is off right now.</s>THOMAS: Correct.</s>COHEN: Can you move your legs?</s>THOMAS: I can't.</s>COHEN: Now, let's see you turn it on.</s>THOMAS: With this setting that I have selected, I can move my leg.</s>COHEN: That's amazing. Her phenomenal accomplishment is reported this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. In the study by researchers at the University of Louisville, four paralyzed patients were implanted with the device. Two of them, Thomas in this man were able to walk again after intense physical training. Another study out this week, this one from the Mayo Clinic, confirms these findings. The researchers report that one of their paralyzed patients also walked after getting a stimulator but with assistance. You were paralyzed. You could not move your legs, and now you can walk.</s>THOMAS: Yes.</s>COHEN: What word would you use to describe how that feels?</s>THOMAS: It's out of this world it really is.</s>COHEN: Each step is exhilarating and exhausting.</s>THOMAS: Come on, feet.</s>COHEN: This is hard work. You don't just turn on the simulator and go.</s>THOMAS: That's absolutely right. It's not a quick fix to being paralyzed. Every single step, I have to focus.</s>COHEN: She hopes others one day will experience a similar transformation.</s>THOMAS: Nothing's going to be able to stop me in life because I took something that was thought to be impossible and I turned it into possible.</s>COHEN: Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Lecanto, Florida.</s>HOWELL: Elizabeth, thank you. And thank you for being with us for this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm George Howell at the CNN center in Atlanta. Let's do it again. Another hour of news right after the break. Stay with us.