Recovery Comes To Raleigh: Nextstep offers therapy and support for individuals living with paralysis.
By Beth Peterson / Photos by Joe Reale
Another story of inspiration comes from Emma Bailey, who was involved in a serious car accident during her senior year of high school that also left her paralyzed from the chest down. She was in the hospital the entire summer, moving from the ICU to a step-down unit, all the while receiving in-patient therapy until she went home with a power wheelchair in September.
Not long after Emma left the hospital, she heard about NextStep. “I was one of their first clients,” Emma recalls. “The first day I toured [the facility] it felt like a family home. They want you to get back as much movement and strength as you can.”
Robotic arm helps Raleigh chef paralyzed in motorcycle crash regain use of his hands
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- More than four years of pain, therapy, and hard work have led to a milestone for a Raleigh man who beat the odds.
Four-and-a-half years ago, Michael Thor was just months away from opening his dream restaurant -- Whiskey Kitchen -- in downtown Raleigh. But his chef dreams came to a screeching halt when a motorcycle accident left him paralyzed from the neck down.
"All of a sudden it feels like my arm weighs 50, 60 pounds and I just can't lift it up. It feels like it's cased in cement or something," Thor said.
But for the first time in his journey of recovery at NextStep Raleigh, a new Myomo robotic arm helped him breakthrough that cement.
Whiskey Kitchen co-owner gets fitted with robotic arm 4 years after paralyzing motorcycle accident
RALEIGH –Whisky Kitchen co-owner Michael Thor has a superhero’s name.
Soon, he’ll have one robotic arm to go with it.
Today, the 37-year-old, who became quadriplegic after a 2015 bike accident and can’t move from the neck down, was fitted for a robotic arm manufactured by the medical robotics company Myomo.
The Massachusetts-based startup says its powered brace, the MyoPro, is currently the only robotics device on the market that can restore mobility for people suffering from neurological disorders or upper-body paralysis.
4 years after paralyzing wreck, Raleigh restaurateur vows: ‘This will not be my life’
Michael Thor’s last memory of his old life is turning his motorbike left on North Person Street in downtown Raleigh.
When he woke up in WakeMed Hospital, his right arm was torn apart, six of his ribs were broken, a lung had collapsed. Most severely, he had a crack on his C2 vertebrae and a spinal cord bruise — a mark on his body dividing his life in two.
Nearly four years ago, on Nov. 20, 2015, he was in a motorcycle crash that left him a quadriplegic. A year ago, the co-owner of Whiskey Kitchen returned to Raleigh after a few years at a rehabilitation center in Atlanta, to stitch together the life he had planned with what his life had become.
Because on the other side of a life upended is a life that goes on.
Paralyzed chef's mom opens Raleigh gym to help him, others recover
RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) --
Nearly three years after a car hit his motorcycle, sending him into a utility pole and leaving him paralyzed from the neck down, Raleigh chef Michael Thor is finally back home and getting stronger.
The co-owner of downtown Raleigh's popular Whiskey Kitchen was injured on November 20, 2015, before the restaurant was set to open.
Michael's wife and caregiver Sarah, along with his parents, uprooted their lives in Raleigh and moved to Atlanta to support him through his recovery at the Shepherd Center, one of the top spinal acute care and rehab facilities in the country.
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Back in the kitchen
One part neighborhood bar, one part Southern kitchen and a dash of wood smoke greeted Michael Thor upon his permanent return to Raleigh last month. After spending nearly three years in Atlanta recovering from a paralyzing motorcycle accident, the Whiskey Kitchen co-owner is back in the world he helped create.
“So far, so good,” says Thor, who returned to Raleigh August 3. “It’s tiring. Friday and Saturday are both 10 hours here. I have to figure out what my body can handle and what it can’t. I hit the ground running at the beginning of the week and crash by the end.”
Restaurant holds fundraiser for paralyzed Raleigh chef
RALEIGH, North Carolina (WTVD) -- The day in November 2015 when a car hit Raleigh chef Mike Thor, throwing him from his motorcycle into a pole leaving him paralyzed, the restaurant he'd been dreaming up for years was under construction.
Now, months after its grand opening, Thor is back in Raleigh and experiencing Whiskey Kitchen for the first time just as it prepares to host a fundraiser in his honor on Sunday.
Friends rally as Raleigh chef recovers from motorcycle collision
RALEIGH
Chef Michael Thor faces a long road where success will be judged by the wiggle of a toe.
Thor, 33, a partner in the Whiskey Kitchen restaurant set to open later this year off downtown’s Nash Square, suffered a severe spinal cord injury in a motorcycle wreck about 10 weeks ago. The downtown Raleigh community of chefs, restaurateurs, artists and friends are raising money to support Thor and his wife, Sarah, as he tries to recover.
