Doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital successfully used a new procedure to help Miami Police Officer Manny Gomez walk again after he suffered a spinal cord injury.
After falling from his police horse in January and severely bruising his spinal cord, Miami Officer Manny Gomez seemed a long shot to ever walk again.
But movement in his left foot meant his injury was not overwhelmingly severe.
And that gave doctors a few hours to try a procedure they have not attempted previously.
Using new technology, doctors lowered his core body temperature several degrees for two days to reduce swelling in his spinal cord and prevent the injury from worsening.
It worked.
Using handrails to balance himself, Gomez this week gingerly shuffled his feet during therapy at Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Rehabilitation Center.
Helping him were therapists Alexandra Villegas and Orlando Sendon. Fellow Miami police mounted patrolmen Jose Pastor and Luis Pla watched over him, bearing all-important thimbles of Cuban coffee.
”It’s depressing sometimes, but I feel like I’ve found a home,” he says of his new surroundings at Jackson’s rehabilitation center. “All the guys have been incredible with me.”
Gomez, 55, is a popular mounted patrolman who has worked Little Havana for almost two decades. His horses are known for their love of tasty Cuban bread.
But on Jan. 15, as he and fellow officers were preparing for the Three Kings Day Parade, he took a freak spill off his horse (his usual horse, Sonny, was sick that day).
Fellow officers found him sprawled on the ground, his face bloodied.
”Right away I felt my body getting cold,” Gomez said.
“I thought that was it for me.”
An MRI showed a contusion on his upper spinal cord, but it was considered an ”Incomplete Injury.” So doctors hoped by inducing Hypothermia, it would reduce the swelling in his spinal cord and prevent further injuries.
Still conscious, Gomez at first declined — but with time ticking, he agreed to the procedure. It’s believed to be the first time the procedure has been attempted in Florida because the technology never existed in the past for such injuries.
Surgeons connected him with to a machine called the CoolGuard 3000, which cooled his blood and lowered his body temperature.
”We kept him cool for 48 hours. After 48 hours, we slowly started to warm him,” said Dr. Steven Vanni, the neurosurgeon in charge of the procedure. “He’s done remarkably well. He’s already walking.”
BY DAVID OVALLE
