Eibar Coa provided a sight Thursday afternoon that few could have dreamed
possible after the Gulfstream Park jockey fractured his C-4 vertebra in a racing
spill on February 18 -- he walked into a press conference celebrating his
release from Memorial Regional Hospital South.
"In all my years of neurosurgery never have I seen a case, an event, this
impressive and this miraculous. To have a man who's completely paralyzed from
the neck down -- a complete quadriplegic -- and then be able to get up and walk
is an extremely rare event," said Dr. Scott Berta, the Memorial neurosurgeon who
performed two surgeries to stabilize and repair Coa's injury. "And do to it so
quickly on top of it is pretty much unheard of."
Coa, whose stride was remarkably fluid as he walked to the podium, impressed
his doctors with his positive attitude, but he admitted there were times when he
had doubts that he would be able to walk out of the hospital.
"I'm super happy. When I came to this hospital, for sure I had the hope to
walk out, but I wasn't sure I was going to. I knew I was going to work hard to
do it," said Coa, whose wife, Rebeca, waited nearby to take her husband home
less than two months after his horrific accident. "Just walking out and seeing
all my family and support from the doctors makes me happy. I'm a happy guy
today, for sure."
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