Wang Yan recovering from UB accident

From "People's Daily Online"

Teenager Wang Yan is walking, talking and text messaging her friends less than two years after suffering a nightmarish accident on the uneven bars that put her in a coma and was expected to leave her permanently paralyzed.

Wang, 17, no longer requires help with her day-to-day life after experiencing a miraculous recovery from surgery that saw her on crutches two months after her horrific tumble in the summer of 2007.

She said she is literally taking her rehabilitation one step at a time. "I am still walking very slowly and when I speed up, I lose my rhythm," she was quoted as saying by Sina.com.

Her doctors remain cautious about the level of muscular atrophy in the Chinese gymnast's left leg and both arms however and her training program has been tailored around these deficiencies.

"Her hands are pretty articulate," one of her doctors told the same Chinese portal, without providing his name. "She can knit, type on computers and send mobile phone messages like other people."

The aspiring star from Zhejiang province fell into a coma at the national gymnastics championships in Shanghai on June 10, 2007, after landing headfirst on the mat following her dismount from the uneven bars.

Despite the poor to non-existent odds of her walking again after fracturing her second and third vertebrae, Wang is getting faster by the day during her rehab sessions at the hospital attached to Zhejiang Vocational College of Sports.

Doctors there say she will need their assistance for another 12 months. After that, Wang will be able to do all her rehab at home - a program she will need to follow for the rest of her life.

To keep her mind occupied while her body recuperates, she has begun hitting the books.

"I expected to become a coach one day, before my injury, but now I hope to do some kind of civilian job for the gymnastics team," she said. "Since I have missed so much studying time, now is the perfect time to catch up."


Scary!...good luck for your recovery, Yan!