Maybe other exercise is a better option!

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A woman who was left paralysed after a trampoline accident has learnt

to walk again thanks to a revolutionary piece of medical equipment.

 

ROSS PARRY

After using the Lokomat machine, Jeanette Sykes was able to walk

short distances using crutches

Jeanette Sykes, 39, a hairdresser, had to give up her business of 18

years after she twisted and landed awkwardly on a trampoline at a

friend's barbecue.

 

" I knew straight away that I had broken my neck, " she said. Miss

Sykes was soon diagnosed as a tetraplegic.

 

" I couldn't believe what had happened to me, " she said. " I would

never have dreamed something like this can happen on a trampoline,

you think you are safe because you are jumping on a soft surface.

 

" I imagined I would be in a wheelchair and that I had lost everything

I had worked towards. "

 

After the accident in July 2006 Miss Sykes underwent a risky

operation where doctors inserted screws to support the fracture in

her neck.

 

She then had months of intensive rehabilitation in the spinal

injuries centre at Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield, West Yorks,

which happened to be trying out a machine known as the Lokomat.

 

Firas Jamil, the director of the centre, said: " The Lokomat enables

spinal injuries patients to move their legs in a pattern that is

consistent with normal walking motions and can literally help them to

train their brain to teach the body to move again. "

 

To her astonishment, four weeks after using this Swiss-made robotic

treadmill, and five months after the accident, Miss Sykes was able to

walk short distances using crutches.

 

The hospital said a £155,000 donation by The Stepping Stones Appeal

had enabled it to become the first in Britain to purchase a Lokomat.

 

Today, Miss Sykes, who lives in Dewsbury, West Yorks, still has

regular physiotherapy and, although life will never be the same as it

was, she can walk again.

 

" I am lucky to be able to do what I can today, " she said. " My hands

have been badly affected by the accident and I cannot do all the

things I used to do in the same way, like painting, horse riding and,

of course, hairdressing.

 

" It is hard because it was a freak accident that has put me in this

position. "

 

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents said that accidents

involving trampolines had increased by 50 per cent over the past five

years.