(EurekAlert!) – The last thing 15-year-old Camilo Mancera remembers from Jan. 14, 2025, is running for the soccer ball during practice with his Bellaire High School teammates.
Camilo, the team’s goalkeeper, says he remembers his teammate going for the ball at the same time that he slid for it, and feeling their knee make contact with his neck. For a brief moment, he stood up. But he was soon rushed to the emergency room after collapsing on the field.
Two weeks later, Camilo woke up in a hospital bed. “I just had an image in my head of the soccer ball, and I didn’t know what happened or what it meant,” he said.
But Camilo couldn’t express that to his parents or doctors. He couldn’t speak, and he slowly realized that the left side of his body was completely paralyzed. CONTINUE