Woman paralyzed aboard flight shows improvement

McALLEN - A woman who was paralyzed aboard a weekend Continental flight to McAllen from Houston is showing signs of improvement after a second surgery, her surgeon said.

The 47-year-old woman had a four-hour neck surgery Tuesday night.

She is starting to gain sensation in her body and is now able to wiggle her toes, Dr. Trey Fulp, an orthopedic spine surgeon who is treating her at McAllen Medical Center, said Wednesday.

The woman is breathing without a ventilator, is talking and could soon be able sit upright, he said.

She had been lying flat since early Saturday morning when her flight encountered turbulence, throwing her against the ceiling while she was in the plane's lavatory.

She remains in the intensive care unit at McAllen Medical Center.

"She's a brave lady," Fulp's wife, nurse Cathy Fulp, said. "She said she's going to work hard and walk again."

Trey Fulp said his patient has already promised him a dance when she can walk again.

The Fulps did not release the woman's name, citing privacy concerns.

It's too early to say whether she will fully recover from her injuries, Trey Fulp said.

Tuesday's surgery was meant to stabilize an injury to the woman's odontoid process, a bone in the neck between the first and second vertebrae. The injury is known as a "hangman's fracture" because it's the same injury that a person sustains when he is hanged.

On Saturday, doctors spent six hours operating on the woman to repair a compression fracture to her T4 and T5 vertebrae in her back. That injury caused her paralysis from the chest down.

Continental's Flight 511 encountered turbulence about 2 a.m. Saturday while en route to McAllen from Houston, Bill Gamble, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, said. It landed about 16 minutes later.

The flight departed Houston at 1:21 a.m. after a more than three-hour delay.

The turbulence shook the plane up and down and lasted about 15 seconds, Gamble said. The motion was not severe enough to cause damage to the plane, and the aircraft's seatbelt sign was illuminated at the time of the event.

Two other passengers and one flight attendant were also injured, Gamble said, although they only sustained bruises and minor lacerations.

He said the agency would launch a formal investigation of the event.