Bel's Story

Tragedy can strike in a heartbeat…and one little girl, Annabel Young (or Bel as she is known to friends and family) knows this only too well. A slip while playing on a sunny afternoon on a neighbour’s climbing frame devastated her life forever. Her childhood was shattered. Her family was distraught. Bel was just eight years old when her accident happened. Like all children there was nothing she liked better than running round and playing with her friends. Now, all she can do is look on from the sidelines in her wheelchair.

“No child or parent should have to go through something as tragic as this. To see your child lifeless on the floor having mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, being stretchered into the ambulance with tubes everywhere, flashing blue lights and the piercing sirens, is a memory no mother should have to live with. To have a child with a spinal cord injury is not only frightening but a life-changing event,” Vanessa, Bel’s Mum

Bel spent 10 months in intensive care. Three and half years on, Bel remains paralysed from the neck down. Bel is completely reliant on her Mum Vanessa, Dad Simon and her carers, and is dependent on a ventilator to breathe at night. Bel faces a lifetime of care unless there is a new treatment to reverse her paralysis. That is why all our scientists are working around the clock.

Spinal cord repair research is Bel’s only hope, along with the 50,000 other people like her currently living with spinal cord paralysis in the UK and Ireland – and millions more around the globe.

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