For the victim of a recent horse fall in the northwest suburbs, the medical prognosis was grim. The man, who had been thrown from a horse, told emergency responders that he had no feeling or movement in both of his arms and legs.
The man was rushed to Northwest Community Hospital (NCH) in Arlington Heights where he was taken for emergency surgery by Richard Broderick, MD, a neurological surgeon who found that the victim was beginning to regain some feeling and movement throughout his body upon his arrival.
“After he was thrown from the horse, first responders found him to have been rendered quadriplegic,” Dr. Broderick says. “This was a situation similar to injuries in the NFL. He needed to go into emergency surgery.” During surgery, Dr. Broderick found that the man had ruptured a disk in his neck during the fall and had severe compression of his spinal cord, which led to immediate paralysis. To relieve the compression, Dr. Broderick performed surgery on the spinal cord. After the two-hour procedure, the victim was in good spirits and had regained feeling and movement in his arms and legs.
Following a night of rest at NCH, the victim showed remarkable improvement. He was discharged just one day after his accident and left NCH on his own power.
“We don’t often see this quick recovery from such a catastrophic injury,” Dr. Broderick says. “He walked out the front door of the hospital less than 24 hours after accident.”
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