OWENSBORO, KY (WFIE) -
Technology originally designed my NASA to simulate astronauts walking on the moon has made its way to Owensboro.
With it, a woman paralyzed by an auto-immune deficiency is now walking and running again.
It's called Alter G, and it's redefining people's ideas of impossible.
It might just look like a woman running on a treadmill, but last December 21-year-old Brittany Swope was paralyzed from the waist down.
"I just felt really tired. I slept all day. The day after Christmas, I woke up and the left side of my face was drooping. The next week, I just kept getting weaker and weaker and my fingers and my toes were tingling. It got to the point where my legs and my arms just felt like they were asleep all the time," Brittany told 14 News.
She was diagnosed with auto-immune deficiency that was destroying her nerves.
"I didn't know if I was going to be temporarily paralyzed or fully paralyzed or live or die. You really don't know. I have a two-year old and to think that I would never get to see her again. That's what gave me strength to work," Brittany pointed out.
Recently, Progressive Sports Therapy received a new anti-gravity treadmill. Brittany decided to give it a try, saying that she originally had very low expectations.
But then, progress. The machine has allowed her to rehab so she can walk and even run again.
"It's going to release air into a lower chamber and it's actually going to then remove a person from their level of gravity and unweight them," said Shannon Ballhous with Alter G.
"You feel like you're walking on air," Brittany said.
"There's no way we'd been able to get her to run without this technology," said occupational therapist Trisha Phelps.
"My ultimate goal is to be able to walk normally, because I can walk, but it takes a lot of thought process and to be able to run and chase my daughter," Brittany said.
We're told this technology is also being used to help injured athletes heal faster.
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