BEIJING: When Leo Hallan woke up in a hospital and found out he was paralysed from his chest down from a motorcycle accident in 1976, he thought his life was over.

The 20-year-old had also lost sensation in both his arms and hands.

Doctors told him he would have to live with the disability for the rest of his life.

Sitting in a wheelchair in Dr Huang Hongyun’s clinic in the Beijing Xishan Hospital recently, the 49-year-old American told of a miraculous moment when he was able to regain some of his sense for the first time in 29 years.

Shortly after Huang injected Olfactory Ensheathing Cells (OEC) into his spinal cord, he started noticing changes — within a week, he started perspiring below his chest and could feel the chill of the wind for the first time when he went outdoors in his wheelchair.

“When I was outside, I felt cold in my arm, the hair of my arm was moving, I had to look down to believe it,” said a cheerful-looking Hallan. “Words cannot express my emotions.

“It was total amazement, just unbelievable,” he said. “Twenty-nine years ago ... many doctors said I’d never walk again. At least now I can say there is quite a bit of hope.”

Hallan is just one of some 800 patients who have been seen by Huang, whose controversial approach to treating Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and spinal cord injuries by injecting cells from aborted foetuses has been sceptically received by many western medical experts.

Almost all of his patients are foreign, from countries including Spain, Germany, France, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and Pakistan, though most are from the United States.

Huang’s centre said most of its spinal cord injury patients have regained some sensory and motor function, as well as the control of urine and bowel movement, while most ALS patients had seen indefinite stabilisation in their neurological function.—AFP