Spinal Cord Injury

Erin Michael ran the relay race in the Baltimore Running Festival last year and saw a few disabled racers — but thought there could be more. The 29-year-old therapist at Kennedy Krieger Institute encouraged and then helped train nine patients who finished the race Saturday. Michael ran the 5K, then raced back a mile to watch her proteges.

Doctors told him he’d be in a wheelchair by the time he was a teenager. Well, he’s miraculously beaten the odds and, this month, will be walking in his first 5K at the Baltimore Running Festival. “By the grace of God, I’ve strived to keep myself active and healthy,” he says. “I’m 58 and still going strong.” Sersen, of Joppatowne, has someone else to thank—the team at Kennedy Krieger’s International Center for Spinal Cord Injury (ICSCI) where he started therapy in 2008. Read more.

Pat Rummerfield is used to being described as a walking miracle. More than three decades after breaking his neck in several places, Rummerfield cannot only walk, he can also run and is considered to be a fully-functional quadriplegic. Read more.

John Manison is an 18-year-old freshman at Ashland University in Ohio. He is dedicated to his rehabilitation at Kennedy Krieger’s International Center for Spinal Cord Injury and focused on achieving therapy goals en route to living his life without a wheelchair.

In 2009, the FDA approved the use of human embryonic stem cell-based therapy for the treatment of patients with spinal cord injuries. Cell-based therapy - the use of human cells transplanted into the human body to promote healing - is not a futuristic concept. Bone marrow transplant, for example, is a cell-based therapy that was proven to be safe and effective more than 50 years ago. Stem cells are particularly useful in these cell-based therapies because they are both immortal and flexible, meaning they can divide without end and they can become almost any type of cell.

It was spring of 2007, and the town of Hastings, Nebraska, was looking forward to summer. Memorial Day weekend had come and gone, and Kirk and Jami Ortegren had just watched their son Jack crawl for the first time.