Mar 12, 2009 2:46 pm US/Pacific
Paraplegic Man Suffers Spider Bite, Walks Again
MANTECA, Calif. (CBS13) ―
He has been confined to a wheelchair for 20 years. Now a paraplegic man is walking again, and his doctors call it a miracle. CBS13 went to Manteca to find out how a spider bite helped get him back on his feet.
"I closed my eyes and then I was spinning like a flying saucer," explains David Blancarte.
A motorcycle accident almost killed David 21 years ago. At the time he might have wished he was dead.
"I asked my doctor, 'Sir what happened? I can't feel my legs'," said David.
Ever since, David's been relying on his wheelchair to get around. Then the spider bite. A Brown Recluse sent him to the hospital, then to rehab for eight months.
"I'm here for a spider bite. I didn't know I would end up walking," says David.
A nurse noticed David's leg spasm and ran a test on him.
"When they zapped my legs, I felt the current, I was like 'whoa' and I yelled," he says.
He felt the current and the rush of a renewed sense of hope.
"She says,'your nerves are alive. They're just asleep'," explained David.
Five days later David was walking.
"I was walking on the bar back and forth," he said.
Now David is out of the hospital and on his feet and walking.
David basks in his glory and gives a ray of hope to other hoping to walk again. The 48-year-old former boxer and dancer is taking it in stride, knowing his best days are still ahead.
David's dream is to see his 14-year-old twin daughters grow up and get married so he can walk them down the aisle and have that first dance.
Blancarte's dreams may have to wait. He was
arrested Friday (3/13) on an outstanding warrant stemming from a domestic abuse case.
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