Sam Fitness, 18, arrived home last week after more than four months in hospital and the Otara spinal care unit
Sam Fitness, 18, arrived home last week after more than four months in hospital and the Otara spinal care unit
Tetraplegic teenager Sam Fitness is back in Tauranga for the first time in more than four months after learning to breathe again, swallow water, feed himself without the help of tubes and lift his elbows from his side.
The 18-year-old broke his C5 vertebrae and was paralysed after he slippedand fell 8m from a tree last December.
He left the Otara Spinal Unit last week to settle into his "new life".
He is living at a motel while the family home in Papamoa is renovated to accommodate him with a larger bedroom, ensuite and eventually, wheelchair access to the top storey.
He has been told he will probably never walk again but the teen looks forward to the future, focusing on what he has already achieved and, only four months after his accident, sets goals to regain his independence.
Sam hopes he can regain the strength to move into a self-propelled wheelchair and is already keen on trying wheelchair rugby. Photo / George Novak
Seeing his hand twitch for the first time since the accident was one of the best moments in his rehabilitation, he told the Bay of Plenty Times.
It came after hours of electrical stimulation treatment while he stared at his hand, mentally willing it to move.
"It was so exciting. For a while I didn't believe it was real ... I couldn't believe it was me."
Doctors had told him the chance of regaining much movement was low but Sam said his determined nature was even stronger than before his accident.
Being able to self-propel himself in a manual wheelchair was one of his biggest goals, already setting his sights on wheelchair rugby in the future, as well as the hope of driving again in a hand-controlled car.
"I'm looking forward to the future and seeing how much independence I can gain and become stronger."
Personal independence was the biggest motivation you could have to work hard at physiotherapy and the gym, he said.
He has had no shortage of visitors with friends seeing him everyday and 15 friends travelled to Auckland to help him celebrate his 18th birthday in Auckland Hospital.
Support from family, friends, and strangers has been overwhelming and helped him get through the hardest mental and emotional challenges in hospital, he says.
Sam recalls the months of reliance on a ventilator when he could not breathe for himself, a tracheostomy so doctors could clear phlegm from his lungs because he could not cough, a feeding tube because he could not eat and because of the tubes, not being able to talk.
"If I ever get down I think, 'well, I managed to learn to breathe again so nothing can be as hard as that'," he says, adding every tube he managed to wean himself off was a huge step.
