23 May 2024 , 09:41
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A 28-year-old woman from Oregon has recalled the moment she was paralysed from the waist down after severing her spine in a freak accident.
Danielle Drummond had hoped for a fresh start in a new state but the tragic accident has left her with a severed spine and needing a wheelchair to get around after she and a friend tried to move a piano. She was moving the heavy instrument last month when the friend she had been helping lost her grip and dropped the “whole upright piano” on her, WIWO reports.
Danielle, who had only recently moved to Oregon from Ohio, was rushed to hospital where doctors performed emergency surgery on her. But she was given the terrible news that the accident had severed her spinal cord, leaving her paralysed from the waist down.
“I’m trying to keep in high spirits because I know this is my life now, but it’s hard,” she told the outlet. “As of right now, I need a lot more physical therapy. I need to rebuild my strength.”
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Danielle will need extensive rehab after he spine was severed in the freak accident (GoFundMe)
Her sister said Danielle was recovering well at hospital but still needs somewhere to live (Facebook)Danielle will need extensive rehab following the injury as well as a home health aid, which presents more difficulties for her as she was living in her van with her dog Lotus before the accident. The 28-year-old has no family in Oregon to care for her and is currently searching for a place to live while she recovers.
A return to her native Cleveland also seems impossible in her current condition. “I don’t even know how I would get home, let alone how to transfer all the medical stuff, and I don’t feel like I’m able right now to do that far of a car ride or a trip in an aeroplane,” Danielle told reporters.
Her sister, Rosie Hayne, is trying to raise funds to help Danielle find a place to live and help pay her medical bills - she has set up a GoFundMe to help. “Our hearts are completely broken, My baby sister means the world to me,” Rosie wrote.
Danielle was helping a friend move a piano when their grip slipped (WOIO)“Such a strong and wise woman, down to earth and humble, her aura reflects her beautiful soul. We will get through this with lots of prayer and positive guidance. This is in God’s hands now, please wrap them around her tight!”
Rosie said doctors had told her sister that she had fractured her T11 and T12, near the middle of her back. In order to improve her spinal stability doctors fused the vertebrae from T10-L2, the mid portion of her back, during surgery.
Rosie wrote that her sister was “getting around really well in the hospital wheelchair,” in an update on May 1, but she still needed a place to live. “She wants to make it clear that she is not expecting to ever walk again.
"She has accepted the reality of her situation. But she has an amazing spirit and an overall positive outlook, focusing on what she can do.” While Danielle has been left paralysed by the accident for the foreseeable future, she said that she was “hopeful” that future medical advances may give her the ability to walk again one day.