Abby Weiss, North Park, San Diego, California woman paralysed from the neck down after acroyoga exercise goes wrong as she is now forced to reassess a new life and hope against hope that she may one day regain movement.
She probably would’ve taken the same chance even if she knew of the risks involved …
An active and ‘vibrant’ fitness enthusiast has been left paralyzed from the neck down after she fell and injured her spinal cord while doing acroyoga, according to her family.
Abby Weiss, 32, of North Park, suffered the debilitating, life changing injury in San Diego, California on June 21 while performing a mid-air maneuver in her practice, which combines yoga and acrobatics, her family told 10News.
Living life … but at what cost?
‘She’s scared out of her wits. She said the other day it feels like she’s in a straitjacket. She can’t move,’ her father, Rory Weiss, told the outlet.
Weiss, who works as a pediatric speech therapist, was passionate about acroyoga and had been practicing it for four years before her life-altering mishap, according to her dad.
He added that his daughter loved being active outdoors, which is what made her current condition so difficult to accept.
‘She said you have to live life,’ Rory Weiss said. ‘She pushed the envelope a little too far, I think.’
Weiss ended up spending several weeks in intensive care on a ventilator — unable to breathe or speak on her own — after the accident, according to a GoFundMe page tracking her road to recovery.
To date the fundraiser has raised $156,622 of a $250,000 goal.
‘The medical bills are astronomical,’ Rory said. ‘We have insurance, but caregivers and therapy, there’s no end.’
Will fitness enthusiast ever regain movement?
Weiss has since undergone a slew of spinal fusion surgeries and unable to live on her own has since moved back to Illinois where she originally hails.
Weiss transferred to a rehab clinic in Chicago close to where her parents live.
‘I really didn’t know what it was like,’ her dad said of the possible dangers associated with the sport.
‘Had I known the type of maneuvers she was doing, I would have told her not to do it, but I don’t think she would’ve listened.’
The Weiss family is hopeful Abby will regain some movement as the inflammation goes down, but doctors say there’s no guarantee.
