…by a crash!

This is one of the most amazing stories I’ve read in a long time.

Via NBC Sports:

UTRECHT, The Netherlands – Paralympic silver medalist Monique van der Vorst has miraculously become an able-bodied Olympic hopeful after a crash reversed her paralysis.

Paralyzed from the hip down since she was 13, the 27-year-old handcyclist, who has just signed with the Rabobank women’s professional cycling team to compete as a top-class able-bodied athlete, was hit by a bicycle last year while training in her wheelchair for the 2012 London Paralympics.

While recovering from the trauma, van der Vorst’s feet started to tingle and miraculously she began to move them again. From that point on she spent months in the hospital and in the rehabilitation centre trying to regain the use of her legs.

Just think about this! If it had been a medical treatment that cured her paralysis, it would have been HUGE news, but in this case it was a medical treatment that CAUSED her paralysis in the first place!

When she was 13, van der Vorst — good at tennis and hockey — suffered nerve damage during a routine ankle operation and was paralyzed from the hip down…

I can only assume that doctors and researchers will be studying her case intensely, and we can only hope that they might be able to glean something that could help them un-paralyze others in the future.