A former Iowa firefighter who suffered a spinal injury battling a blaze more than a decade ago took his first public steps thanks to an exoskeleton.
As a Davenport firefighter in January 2008, Robert Juarez fell 20 feet from a ladder during a fire, the Quad City Times reported at the time. The fall damaged his spinal cord, and he lost feeling from his chest down.
"Right after the fall, I knew I was hurt pretty bad," Juarez told WQAD-TV.
This week, he used an exoskeleton to walk again since the accident. Video captured those first steps, which he had been working up to for months.
Since the accident, Juarez started Quad City Adaptive Sports, a nonprofit group that encourages others with physical disabilities to remain active and not become socially isolated. He also is raising money for Genesis Health System so that the medical facility can purchase a second exoskeleton for outpatient rehab, according to WQAD.
Although he called the experience of walking with an exoskeleton a "full-body workout," Juarez saw the biggest difference in how he interacted with others.
"Seeing eye-to-eye with somebody and having a conversation with them is a great feeling," he told WQAD.
