My miracle bionic legs: I can walk again

Tears well up in Amanda Boxtel’s eyes as she takes a few tentative steps for the first time in 18 years.
‘I’m walking again,’ she whispers, overcome with emotion. ‘It’s a bit of a miracle. This is the day I’ve been waiting for for so long.’

After being confined to a wheelchair for nearly two decades, Amanda is walking again, thanks to a remarkable state-of-the-art machine called eLEGS (Exoskeleton Lower Extremity Gait System).

Devised by US engineers, eLEGS is a computerised device that is strapped to her body, enabling her to stand and walk.
‘To be outdoors again, standing upright and moving – I can’t describe what this means to me,’ she says, wiping away tears.

It’s been a long journey to reach this unbelievable and groundbreaking point for Amanda, 42, who grew up in Brisbane and now lives in the US town of Aspen, Colorado.

She says the combination of the eLEGS device, plus embryonic stem-cell injections that have restored feeling to her lower body, has changed her life.
‘I can now stand tall and move again and feel my body coming alive again!’ she smiles.

Tragic accident

Amanda’s life was turned upside down 18 years ago when the then 24-year-old was involved in a horrific skiing accident that shattered four vertebrae in her back and left her paralysed.

‘The doctor told me I would never walk again and, of course, I was devastated,’ she recalls.
‘I had no feeling from the waist down, although I suffered chronic nerve pain.’

But Amanda refused to let her disability ruin her life and decided to stay in Colorado, where she’d relocated four years before the accident to be with her American boyfriend.
‘The relationship didn’t last, but I fell in love with the mountains and stayed on,’ she explains, stroking her devoted golden retriever, Tucker, who is specially trained to help care for her. ‘Even after the accident, I still felt like I wanted to stay over there.’

She learnt to ski as a paraplegic and loved it. Wanting others with disabilities to be able to enjoy the mountains as much as she did, Amanda co-founded Challenge Aspen, a program designed to help people with cognitive or physical setbacks enjoy skiing, snowboarding or other outdoor activities.

She’s also raised money to buy wheelchairs for paraplegic children in Argentina after she learnt that many were left languishing at home without any form of mobility.
‘In many ways, I’ve always felt fortunate, Amanda says.

High hopes

Three years ago, frustrated that promising embryonic stem-cell treatment wasn’t available in the US, Amanda took regular trips to Delhi, India, to receive the treatment from medical researcher Dr Geeta Shroff.

‘I was the first patient from the United States to receive stem-cell injections here,’ she explains. ‘Dr Shroff said to me “no guarantees about outcomes”, but the treatment has been such a help – I feel much, much better.’

Every six months, Amanda would make the long trip to Delhi for a month of injections and physical therapy.

‘Sometimes the treatment was painful and led to awful migraines, but it always paid off,’ she says.
‘Gradually, I could feel my body coming back to life. Now, for the first time since the accident, I have renewed muscle power, and sensations in my legs again. I have vastly improved bladder control and sexual sensation again after so many years. I feel like a woman again at last.’

Then, earlier this year, Amanda was contacted by a deaf woman she’d taken skiing, who told her: ‘You may care to contact my son. He’s with a company working on some new technology which may help you.’

Soon Amanda was in California where a team at Berkeley Bionics fitted her with the revolutionary new ‘exoskeleton’.
‘I was a bit of a test pilot for them, and happy to be so!’ she laughs.

Strapping on the machine and feeling herself walk for the first time was, she admits, ‘a turning point, a day I’ll never forget’.
She says: ‘Words really can’t describe what this means to me… and for others in my situation.’

Amanda’s successful results with eLEGS made headlines worldwide.
‘I am one of the first people – and the first woman in America – to have the eLEGS, and its makers hope that by 2013 it will be readily available for paraplegics, helping them to be mobile again.’

Small steps

In the meantime, Amanda is still focused on helping others – in between trips to Dehli and California, she works as a motivational speaker and is penning her memoirs.

Thanks to this innovative medical technology, a determined Amanda says her future is looking bright.
‘My message to others who sustain chronic spinal cord injuries is that even if your doctor tells you you can never walk again, you don’t have to give up.’

By: Jacqui Lang
Photos: Charles Engelbert/Sarah Peet