by Ruggiero Corcella
The 55-year-old man is also among the first 7 patients in the world to have a spinal cord neurostimulator implanted. Thanks to the device, he can now travel about 300 metres. The operation was performed on 10 July at San Raffaele in Milan
Destiny destiny. If you are born in a town in the Motor Valley of Italy called Ceparana, a hamlet in the municipality of Bolano, province of La Spezia, you grow up on bread and two wheels. From 1979 to 1982, the team of the legendary Roberto Gallo Gallina prepared the Suzukis that led the Virginio Ferrari riders to place second in the world championship, Marco Lucchinelli and Franco Uncini to win it.
A passion also for Paolo Baldassini, who is now 55 years old and has become the second paraplegic patient in Italy – and one of seven in the world – to start walking again thanks to a spinal cord neurostimulator implanted last 10 July at the Irccs San Raffale in Milan by a team of neurosurgeons led by Professor Pietro Mortini, head of Neurosurgery and full professor at the Vita – Salute San Raffaele University, in collaboration with a group of engineers from the Biorobotics Institute of the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa directed by the professor Silvestro Micera, internationally renowned expert.
The first intervention
Leading the way in April, having also undergone surgery at San Raffaele, was a 32-year-old, victim of a sporting accident that had caused a spinal cord injury, who, like Paolo, was also able to walk again, first with the help of walker and now on crutches. The passion: The passion for two wheels, with or without engine, a family tradition – says Baldassini -. My grandfather and father raced bicycles and so did I. But when I was 16, they hit me: my spleen was removed, my left leg was damaged… and I had to hang up my bicycle. I recovered very well, however, and I threw myself on two wheels but with the engine. On the hairpin bends of Lunigiana and also on the track. Only as an amateur. I followed the greats, I let them teach me, he says.
Saved by a little boy
Bread and two wheels. The same ones that on the morning of July 23, 2020 took him towards Stadano Bonaparte, 6 kilometers from Ceparana, where Paolo had an appointment. 50 meters from the finish line, on a straight line, the BMW he is traveling in hits something. I was going at 40-50 an hour at most. From the findings then carried out, it seems that a piece of furniture or something similar had been abandoned. That street had become a landfill. What do I remember? Little or nothing: a strong blow to the chest and then blackout.
And even then, destiny travels on two wheels: those of a boy’s mountain bike, who passes by immediately after the accident, sees the rider and motorbike on the asphalt and the alarm. He saved my life reflects Baldassini. The rest appears like a fading film: the flashing lights of the rescuers, the ride in an ambulance to a sports field and the helicopter flight to the Cisanello hospital in Pisa. Paolo undergoes two operations, one on his spine and the other to reconstruct his leg.
The harsh response of the doctors
Two weeks of hospitalization and then they transfer him to the spinal unit of the Careggi hospital in Florence. When the doctors talk to him about his condition, the world seems to collapse: his spinal cord is damaged and he will no longer be able to walk. For a volcano like me who couldn’t sit still for a second, finding himself stuck in bed and then in a wheelchair with a mountain of problems was a disaster.
Between Pisa and Florence, hospitalizations last almost seven months. Paolo walks through the door of the house, in a wheelchair, on February 27, 2021. I was lucky enough to have my ex-girlfriend, my brother Sandro and my cousin Michele close by but it was very hard. I didn’t accept the accident, the paraplegia, the wheelchair. Then I said to myself: either I let myself go and it all ends or I have to react. So I joined the gym and began to lead a more or less normal life within the limits of my possibilities.
The images of the implanted woman are on the news
On June 3 this year, returning from the gym, Paolo was stunned when he saw images of the woman implanted at San Raffaele on the news. He looks at it twice more, reads Professor Mortini’s name and calls the hospital to make an appointment. On June 23rd I went to the visit and they selected me. I couldn’t believe it, it all seemed like a dream. I only asked Professor Mortini why they had chosen me and whether I could have gotten worse. His answers convinced me.
The intervention
On July 10, Paolo enters the operating room and comes out after about 8 hours. A week later he was transferred to Rehabilitation and on the 18th -19th he began to work, first harnessed to a piece of equipment. Then, as the regulation of the neurostimulator improves, the first steps are taken with the help of the walker. What do you feel? Current, like that of external electrostimulators but inside your body. You feel this sort of tingling that increases until it reaches jolts.
The system has a remote control with 16 different programs. I wait for the system to start and start walking. Today I manage to cover about 300 metres, not all in a row but almost, even if with a person next to me. So it works. By the end of the year I hope to do it independently, because I want to go and visit the only aunt I have left who lives in Morocco. I promised him.
How the neurostimulator works
The implanted device consists of two parts: a biocompatible support for 32 electrodes which is inserted into the epidural space of the spinal column and a pulse generator (a sort of pacemaker) similar to those used in patients with cardiac arrhythmias, inserted under the skin at hip level, both with a small incision of 7-8 centimeters. The impulses are delivered to the spinal cord from where they pass to the nerves and muscles. The pacemaker is then programmed to ensure coordinated activation of all the muscles necessary for walking.
Control of the stimulator functions is possible thanks to a series of options that can be chosen by the patient based on the locomotor needs of daily life. Three patients have been implanted so far (the last on November 23rd). The advanced research program of Irccs San Raffaele and Sant’Anna di Pisa has obtained authorization to treat 10 patients in total, one every three months.
The promise to himself: get back on track
Bread and two wheels. Getting back on a motorbike, perhaps on the track, is not a closed chapter for Paolo. I proposed it to myself. In 25 years of racing I have broken a collarbone and an ankle bone. Instead, with an accident like this I practically crumbled. The track is much safer.
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December 17, 2023 (changed December 17, 2023 | 09:36)
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