Ceylan walks again after doctors gave her a 1% chance

Ceylan Ağaç fell from a sixth-floor window in Kars after becoming dizzy during a migraine attack. The 18-year-old university student suffered two spinal fractures and underwent surgery at Kars Harakani State Hospital.

Doctors told her that a spinal cord injury meant she might never walk again. In June, she transferred to Ankara Etlik City Hospital’s Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Hospital, where she began a program at the Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Clinic.

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They said I would not be able to walk, that I was paralyzed. They said there was a 1% chance.

The treatment combined a robotic walking system, a reduced-gravity treadmill, water exercises and individualized therapy with physiotherapists. Ağaç began without movement in her legs, but after about three months she made enough progress to stand and walk again.

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I turned that 1% into 99%.

She said she first learned to sit up in bed, then sit in a chair and eventually walk with support. The program included resistance exercises, muscle stimulation, balance work, pool sessions and computer-assisted exercises. She can now walk by herself in the pool and walk with support outside it.

Ağaç said doctors had given her “a 1% chance” and declared that she would be unable to walk. She described the recovery as slow but insisted that giving up was not an option. “I turned that 1% into 99%,” she said.

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It is such a beautiful feeling, an indescribable emotion.