FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Sports

​We Have the Technology: Paralyzed Athlete Wearing Robotic Exoskeleton Completes Great North Run

Claire Lomas is a pregnant paraplegic woman who just finished walking a half marathon.

TV reruns tell us that science fiction invented bionic people in the 1970s, but that only Steve Austin and Jaime Summers got to use the goods, which cost about $6 million to make. Well, a few decades later, actual science is at it with the bionic miracles.

A 36-year-old paralyzed pregnant woman named Claire Lomas competed at England's Great North Run, the largest half-marathon in the world, wearing a bionic suit. Lomas, who is 16 weeks pregnant, began the race Wednesday and finished Sunday with the help of her husband Dan and the suit, which compensates for injuries she suffered in a riding accident in 2007. Those injuries included a fractured neck, dislocated back, fractured ribs, a punctured lung and pneumonia. She's a paraplegic who just ran a half-marathon. Lomas has been wearing the ReWalk robotic suits, and competing in them, since 2012.

Advertisement

We really do have the technology!

Here are more details of Lomas's run, from the Guardian, and they're pretty inspiring:

Lomas told the Guardian that she had suffered from morning sickness during much of her training and had had to seek medical attention for sores caused by the straps of her suit. "I haven't had much sleep. I spent the first two nights worrying that I wouldn't be able to make it," she said.

The former event rider was offered a place in the Great North Run after being refused an official place in the London Vitality 10k. Wearing a ReWalk robotic exoskeleton, which she raised around £50,000 (about $66,600) to buy, Claire walked around three miles each day assisted by her husband Dan, visiting schools en route to talk to children about her battle to overcome her injuries.

The event's winner, none other than Mo Farrah, congratulated Lomas after she finished, saying "she's amazing." Farrah noted Lomas's courage to compete, saying it's just what the Great North Run needs.

It's also good for society at large. Lomas estimates that she raised about $26,000 for charity, but an even greater value in her story comes from simply by the example she sets.