Imagine being told you might never walk again… and then, just six hours after a bold surgery, you feel your fingers twitching! That’s exactly what happened to 35-year-old Liu Boqi, a former traffic police officer from the Chinese mainland. 💥
Two nights before Christmas 2024, Liu’s accident left him with a fractured C3 vertebra and paralysis in all four limbs. With less than a 10% survival rate for such high cervical spinal cord injuries, the odds were stacked against him. But Liu’s army-style training and fierce determination saw him through the first round of surgeries.
When traditional rehab alone wasn’t enough, doctors at the Second Norman Bethune Hospital of Jilin University in northeast of the Chinese mainland made a game-changing decision: implant a custom electrode onto his cervical cord. The result? A twitch in Liu’s index and middle fingers just six hours later! ⚡️
But the real magic happened when Liu strapped on a pair of futuristic robotic legs, or exoskeleton. With targeted mobility training and that high-tech suit, he stood up—and took his first steps in months. 🤖✨
Liu’s story has sparked hope for others, like Zhao Yanchun, who read about this “miracle” and decided to follow in Liu’s footsteps. They call themselves “trailblazers,” paving the way for electrode stimulation surgery to become the next frontier in spinal cord-computer interface technology.
CGTN’s Health Talk dives deeper into Liu Boqi’s pioneering treatment and its potential to transform lives worldwide. Could this be the breakthrough paralysis patients have been waiting for? One thing’s for sure: hope is back on the map. 🌍💪
Reference(s):
Trailer: Paralysis patients might be looking at a glimmer of hope
cgtn.com
