Shoal Harbour man back on two feet after paralyzing fall
A former Shoal Harbour man is enjoying life on his own two feet again, less than four years after being paralysed in a freak accident.
These days, Joey Ralph looks his friends and family in the eye while talking to them. He stands just shy of six feet tall, an inch shorter than he was on Nov. 3, 2012.
That inch, along with Ralph's sensation from the waist down, was taken from him when he fell from a third floor balcony at his home in Hutchinson, Kansas.
'I couldn't move my legs'
"When I came down, it was almost in a sitting position," Ralph told the CBC Central Morning Show.
"The shockwave travelled up my spine and then back down. It broke my back in four places."
Moments earlier, he was doing laundry. It had just rained, and his friend was calling out to him from the balcony below. Ralph leaned over the railing to talk, but slipped.
He suffered a burst fracture of the T11 vertebrae.
"The moment I hit the ground it wasn't very painful," he said. "There's a certain amount of shock that comes with it. I wanted to to get up, and I leaned up. That wasn't any problem. But when I tried to plant my feet and get up off the ground, I realized I couldn't move my legs."
Road to recovery
He was airlifted to Kansas City where he underwent emergency surgery and remained in hospital for two weeks. He then endured two months of rehabilitation at the Craig Hospital in Colorado.
Doctors were frank with him. He would never walk again. Not on his own, anyway.
But while at the Colorado hospital, Ralph caught his first glimpse of an exoskeletal device. He was still in no shape to try it for himself, but he watched as a patient lumbered across the room slowly, in a clunky suit.
While others in the room, including his family, were thrilled at the sight, Ralph was not as impressed.
"Walking, that's obviously a goal," he recalled thinking. "But that's not walking."
A year later, during a follow-up appointment at Craig, he watched a demonstration for a newer model. It was still bulky, but much more responsive.
Ralph tried it on and was impressed, but did not become enamoured by the idea until he saw an even sleeker model at an expo for disabled people in Chicago last year.
"The thing that got me was this guy, he stands right up in this device and he walks around. He's walking like normal. He's moving like normal. It looks natural."
'A portion of control in your life'
The machine consists of two "pants legs," which brace a person above and below the knee. The feet are braced inside two boots. Straps go over the shoulders with a brace on the mid-back. Crutches are strapped to the forearms and used for stability, while the whole system is guided by a wristwatch.
After failing to acquire the exoskeleton through his insurance company, Ralph managed to secure private funding and got it in March of this year. At the time, he was one of just 50 people in the United States to own the machine.
It was an arduous process to master. The steps were slow and long at first, but they grew quicker and more natural. Today, Ralph can walk around at a normal pace and navigate gentle slopes. He can even climb stairs.
But best of all, he gets to stand tall again.
"It's nice to not have to have a person sit down across a table from you in order to have a conversation," he said. "You regain something that's been taken from you. You regain just another portion of control in your life. There's power in that. There's real power in that."
