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Athlete helps with spinal cord injury research
A paralyzed man finds freedom in wheelchair rugby. He collaborates with a Marquette lab to research improved breathing for SCIs.
FOND DU LAC, Wis. - There might not be a more exhilarating feeling for Tony Sabel than when he’s out on the court. The 40-year-old Fond du Lac County man has been pushing himself during wheelchair rugby for the last 16 years.
Wheelchair rugby aptly named
What they're saying:
"I just feel free like I don’t have any limitations," Sabel said. "This has been a blessing for me…I feel like I’ve found my place in this world."
Tony Sabel
The high-endurance game can sometimes take up to 90 minutes to play and cover three to five miles. It’s nicknamed "murderball" for a reason.
"It’s basically smash into each other and have fun and the highest score wins," Sabel said.
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It’s a sport he never imagined he’d jump into just a couple of years after a snow tubing accident in college.
Tony Sabel
"Second trip down the hill on an inner tube," Sabel said. "I flipped head over feet and my fifth vertebrae burst, so they had to remove that."
Sabel's story
The backstory:
Sabel spent months in the hospital. He endured a collapsed lung and battled pneumonia twice. He was placed on a ventilator temporarily and had a tracheostomy at one point. Over time, he’s seen improvements in his mobility, but like so many others with spinal cord injuries, breathing has been one of his biggest challenges.
"It was just a long struggle to be able to breathe on your own again," Sabel said.
Spinal cord injuries
By the numbers:
In the United States, about 18,000 people sustain a spinal cord injury each year. Most happen in the cervical region or the upper part of the spinal cord. It’s an area where many neurons or nerve cells are found that help people breathe.
"After spinal injury, there’s a number of respiratory deficits and respiratory complications are the leading cause of death after spinal cord injury," Marquette University professor and researcher Kristi Streeter said.
Sabel is lending his life experience to the research led by Streeter at Marquette. For the last five years, her team has worked at the Streeter Lab at Marquette’s Neuro Recovery Clinic.
"Our work is really focused on identifying new strategies to improve breathing after spinal cord injury," Streeter said.
Spinal injury research
Dig deeper:
The research is focused on electrically stimulating the diaphragm muscle and activating receptors connected to sensory neurons. They then send messages to the spinal cord and brain.
"With ongoing activation of our stimulation that we’re kind of changing the spinal cord to build new roads and to restore activity back to this muscle that’s been paralyzed after spinal injury," Streeter said.
Marquette University professor and researcher Kristi Streeter
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The National Institutes of Health recently awarded Streeter a $2.7 million grant over the next five years to continue her work. The long-term goal is to possibly take the research outside the lab.
"We think that it’s a missed opportunity and that it can actually be used as a therapy," Streeter said.
What's next:
For Sabel, his outlook continues to push him forward. He’s happy to be a part of the research and show others what’s possible.
"It definitely gives me hope," Sabel said.
Tony Sabel
The Source: Information in this post was produced by FOX6 News.