Adam Fritz was just another 21-year-old kid back in 2008—about to enter his senior year of college, cruising home from work on his motorcycle near Diamond Bar, California—when his life changed forever: A table from a truck in front of him slipped off and struck him, flinging him off his motorcycle onto the freeway.
“It’s what I called my ‘oh ****’ moment,” he told TIME. “I tried to sit up and get up on my feet. I remember the firefighters telling me not to move. Everything just hurt.”
Two days later, Fritz was told he had a spinal cord injury—and that he’d never walk again.
Now, however, researchers at the University of California at Irvine have turned that prognosis on its head, reports a case study published Wednesday in the Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation. Fritz, who was supposed to spend his life in a wheelchair, is back on his feet, thanks to an elaborate combination of virtual reality, computer algorithms and a whole lot of ingenuity.
