[Mieke Jansen]

Two weeks ago my friend fell down the stairs and fractured his spine. When he woke up, after a couple of minutes he couldn't feel anything from the neck down but was able to breathe. He fractured c3 and c4. They put him in a halo and vest and he was moved to medium care. He stayed there 4 days, in this time he regained feeling and some movement in his right arm, none in his left and some movement and "weird"feeling in his legs.
After a week he's had surgery to decompress and stabilize and they put a bone graft. Day after surgery he has a lot more movement in his right arm, he can now move his hand tto his face and has movement in his thumb but not in his fingers. His left arm he can move up a bit and he can flex his elbow. No movement in his wrist or fingers. His legs are doing very good and although he still has weird feeling he is able to walk 5 meters, assisted by 2 pt's. But he cannot sit by himself and although he is in a semi- upright position in bed he keeps sliding down. He has cannot pee or have a bowel movement. Next week he is moving to a rehab facilitie.

What can he expect for the future? Will he regain full function of his arms an hands?

Hopefully you understand what i mean, as you can see English is not my language...so excuse my mistakes

Thanks in advance for all the information'

[Trinity]

Hi Mieke
Welcome to the forum. It is impossible to predict the outcomes with SCI, no 2 injuries are the same. His progress so far is encouraging and I hope it continues. It's going to be a lot of hard work! Have a good read through the boards, there is a lot of information here.