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Brown Recluse Spider He has been confined to a wheelchair for 20 years. Now a paraplegic man is walking again, and his doctors call it a miracle. CBS13 went to Manteca to find out how a spider bite helped get him back on his feet. "I closed my eyes and then I was spinning like a flying saucer," explains David Blancarte. A motorcycle accident almost killed David 21 years ago. At the time he might have wished he was dead. "I asked my doctor, 'Sir what happened? I can't feel my legs'," said David. Ever since, David's been relying on his wheelchair to get around. Then the spider bite. A Brown Recluse sent him to the hospital, then to rehab for eight months. "I'm here for a spider bite. I didn't know I would end up walking," says David. A nurse noticed Da...

When police park at HQ, regular rules do not apply (Boston.com) Illegal parking in a handicapped spot is no trifling matter. Boston issues 11,000 tickets a year, each of which carries a $120 fine and often a $93 towing charge. And it is not uncommon for passersby to loudly rebuke able-bodied drivers who use parking spots reserved for the disabled. But violators who use the 11 handicapped-designated spaces in front of Boston Police headquarters are immune from any sanction at all - or even a sidelong glance from the scores of police officers who enter and leave the building every day, according to Globe observations over the past two months. One repeat scofflaw: the driver of a Toyota Corolla registered to Irene Landry, the city's supervisor of Parking Enforcement, who oversees the 194 parking enforcement officers who write 1.3 million tickets a year. When a Globe reporter called Landry's office on Feb. 10 to ask about the Toyota, Landry was stunned. "I will investigate,...

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A teen who felt cheated after fundraising to help his brother starts a charity. By Felisa Cardona The Denver Post Image via Wikipedia Mark Rinkel, 13, of Aurora started Red Alert Dogs for Diabetics to train canines such as Lucy, the puppy he is holding, to be service dogs. (Karl Gehring, The Denver Post ) By selling his secret recipe of regular and sugar-free lemonade, 13-year-old Mark Rinkel raised enough money to get a service dog to help his little brother Jason cope with Type 1 diabetes. But Mark says the dog he worked so hard to get did not detect serious changes in his brother's blood sugar, as was promised, and the dog also bit Jason's hand when he tried to pet him. "It turned out to be a scam," said the boys' mother, Marisa Rinkel. "After he bit my son, we gave him back." The story of Mark's lemonade stand was featured in summer 2007 on ABC's "Good Morning America" and CNN, helping him raise $17,000, more than the $6,000 needed ...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife The number of backlogged disability claims at the Social Security Administration (SSA) more than doubled over the past decade, with those pending at the hearing level reaching 760,800 as of October 2008, according to an agency spokesman. The spike in applicants from an aging baby boomer generation, staff cuts, and management problems all contributed to a cumbersome operation; individual cases took an average of more than 500 days to process in 2007. In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of people pursuing disability claims have been forced to wait as long as three years, with some going into bankruptcy, losing their homes, or even dying while waiting for a result. As far back as 2001, the chairman of the Social Security Advisory Board acknowledged that “unless there’s fundamental change, we will soon see disruptions of service. The Social Security agency lacks the ability to handle existing workloads, and those workloads are bound to i...

Killed: The gang stabbed the woman's Yorkshire Terrier to death before turning on her A disabled woman was slashed repeatedly with a knife after confronting a gang who had stabbed her dog to death in her garden. The mother-of-three, who has not been named, discovered the mutilated body of her Yorkshire terrier Willow lying in a pool of blood outside her door. Seconds later she was confronted by four men who threatened her, forced her back into the house, in Knotty Ash, Liverpool, and then attacked her with a knife. The 38-year-old suffered 'numerous' cuts to her body and had to be treated in hospital. Police have arrested a 13-year-old boy on suspicion of carrying out the assault, which took place at around 2pm on Sunday. The woman, who has a disability which means she is unable to walk without crutches, is now staying at a relative's home with her three children, a girl aged 14 and boys 10 and nine. Police said she was still deeply shocked by the attack. Detective ...

(CNN) -- Two veterans' organizations Monday filed a federal lawsuit seeking to accelerate decisions on disability claims for retired military personnel. The plaintiffs say the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs takes an average of six months to rule on a typical claim. The lawsuit, filed by the Vietnam Veterans of America and Veterans of Modern Warfare in U.S. District Court in Washington, seeks to force the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide an initial ruling on every veteran's claim for disability benefits within 90 days and to resolve appeals within 180 days. The veterans' groups also are seeking interim benefits for veterans whose claim rulings take longer than those time periods. "The failure to expedite veterans' compensation claims creates, at best, the impression that the nation does not respect its veterans," John Rowan, president of the Vietnam Veterans of America, said in a written statement. "America's veterans deserve more, and th...

Leukaemia drug can halt, reverse MS Thu Oct 23, 5:26 am ET LONDON (AFP) – Researchers at the University of Cambridge said Thursday they have found that a drug originally developed to treat leukaemia can halt and even reverse the debilitating effects of multiple sclerosis (MS). In trials, alemtuzumab reduced the number of attacks in sufferers and also helped them recover lost functions, apparently allowing damaged brain tissue to repair so that individuals were less disabled than at the start of the study. "The ability of an MS drug to promote brain repair is unprecedented," said Dr Alasdair Coles, a lecturer at Cambridge university's department of clinical neurosciences, who coordinated many aspects of the study. "We are witnessing a drug which, if given early enough, might effectively stop the advancement of the disease and also restore lost function by promoting repair of the damaged brain tissue." The MS Society, Britain's largest support charity for thos...

Well folks, it's time to simmer down. Without going into any detail so as to retain Bobby's well-deserved privacy, suffice it to say that the saga ends here. Over the last week or so, I've been "talking" (internet-wise) to Bobby. I now know the entire story behind Fake Service Dog Gate and it is completely a non-issue that was borne from an off-hand conversation Bobby had with Rosie O'Donnell. It was that conversation that elicited Rosie's comment on HSN. Bobby did NOT try to sneak his dog onto a flight (recent or otherwise) by lying that it was a Service Dog. Bobby has NEVER claimed his dog was a Service Dog. Not only did Bobby explain the whole story, he provided me with definitive proof: the receipt he received after purchasing an extra airline seat for his dog. So it all needs to stop. I do fault myself for going off the deep-end with this story. I realize now that I was being overly sensitive due to my own personal experiences with coming into contact...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Monkeys taught to play a computer game were able to overcome wrist paralysis with an experimental device that might lead to new treatments for patients with stroke and spinal cord injury. Remarkably, the monkeys regained use of paralyzed muscles by learning to control the activity of just a single brain cell. The result is "an important step forward," said Dawn Taylor of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, who studies the concept of using brain signals to overcome paralysis. She wasn't involved in the new work. The device monitored the activity of a brain cell and used that as a cue to stimulate wrist muscles electrically. Researchers found it could even use brain cells that normally had nothing to do with wrist movement, said study co-author Chet Moritz. So a large untapped pool of brain cells may be available for letting paralyzed people do things like grasping a coffee cup or brushing teeth, Moritz said. But he stressed the approach is years,...

"Drug-smuggling grandmother jailed A grandmother who smuggled cocaine worth £1m in her mobility vehicle has been jailed for 13 years. Ambrozine Heron, 77, and her daughter Paulette Chambers, 49, both of Smethwick, West Midlands, were arrested at the port of Dover in March. The court heard 16kg (35lb) of cocaine was found hidden in Heron's specially-adapted Nissan Pathfinder. Heron was found guilty at Canterbury Crown Court while Chambers admitted her role and was jailed for 14 years. The court heard Heron, who has a range of illnesses including diabetes, asthma and hypertension, was a "willing participant" in the smuggling operation. 'Visiting relatives' Sentencing her, Judge Adele Williams said: "I have no doubt that your role in the car was to add some respectability to the journey in respect of your age and your ill-health." But she added: "The vehicle in which you were travelling was the mobility vehicle which you, Ambrozine Heron, were ent...

One day after Grace Ligon received her brand new, $24,000 custom-made wheelchair in March, it began breaking down. The 10-year-old was in school when one of the armrests fell off. A janitor reattached it with duct tape. When she got home, the foot plates came loose. And the headrest. For weeks, the manufacturer, Permobil, and the business that sold the wheelchair, Apria Healthcare, made small fixes, but the chair continued to break down. By early July the wheelchair was in such bad shape, Grace, who has cerebral palsy, could no longer use it. Her mother, Kathy Becker, called Apria and was told the company could no longer help. On July 1, Apria had sold its Burr Ridge wheelchair store to a company called Rehab Tech. The Apria representative said the broken chair was now Rehab Tech's responsibility. Becker called Rehab Tech and was told no, no, no—Apria had sold her the wheelchair, so Apria should fix it. After Becker pressed the issue, Rehab Tech picked up the wheelchair and agreed ...

Starting around 8:44, Rosie mentions that her friend, Bobby, tells the airlines that his pet dog is his "service dog" so he can have it fly with him in the cabin. I wrote and asked her to PLEASE inform people not to follow his lead. I love Rosie, but this is such a bad example of someone misusing the system to get their pet dog on a plane. Imagine if her friend's dog, not being trained as an actual Service Dog, were to interfere with an actual Service Dog on it's flight. A bad experience with a pet dog passed off as a Service Dog could ruin it for those of us who REALLY NEED THEM and who struggled for so long for access rights. For non-disabled folks with dogs, instead of lying, please follow these guidelines (from Airfare WatchDog ): In order to bring your dog into the main cabin, the kennel must be able to fit in the area under the seat in front of you. The maximum dimensions for the kennel is 17 inches x 12 inches x 8 inches, but keep in mind that it varies, depen...

ADAPT wasted no time challenging Policymakers on the housing crisis for persons with disabilities with low incomes. After setting up a tent city at HUD headquarters, ADAPT sent 100 activists to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) offices in Washington, D.C., and another hundred to a Sen. John McCain campaign office in Arlington, VA. ADAPT presented a platform for affordable, accessible housing. "The DNC was cordial, and accepted our housing platform, and invitation to visit 'DUH City,' which is HUD spelled backwards," said Barb Toomer, Utah ADAPT. HUD told us they had no authority to make decisions. We have to wait for the administrative appointees to make any decisions. Sen. John McCain's campaign staff not only refused to even look at our housing platform, they had eleven of us arrested." ADAPT's housing platform points to America's growing crisis in the availability of affordable, accessible integrated housing. Many people with disabilities liv...

Inspiring! See photos here

"I like the charbroiled flavor," he says, "just like anybody else." But the Pittsburg man, a quadriplegic with limited use of his arms and upper body, claims fast food giant Burger King makes it a chore to get it his way, from rolling his wheelchair through the drive-thru lane at the Pleasant Hill restaurant, to narrowly steering it between bushes and garbage bins along the entryway, to struggling with heavy doors he can't open. "I'm dead in the water," he said Wednesday as he sat outside the Burger King on Contra Costa Boulevard, flailing his arms for attention. "I'd like to go in and get something to eat, but I can't." On Wednesday, Castaneda, 45, made his complaints a federal case as the lead plaintiff in what disability lawyers hope to make a large class action claiming the fast food giant violates the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and state disability laws. The lawsuit targets 90 restaurants in California that lawye...

University of Texas at Austin alumnus, Chris Stanford (MSEE '91), and Electrical & Computer Engineering undergraduates are working on making exercise fun for wheelchair users. For the last year, Stanford has been partnering with engineering seniors to test his idea for a virtual reality treadmill for the disabled. "Not many people realize," says Stanford who has been confined to a wheelchair since 1988, "the special health risks faced by wheelchair users. Everything is more difficult, including eating right and getting enough exercise. Because of this, the incidence of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease is several times the rate of the general population." Stanford's solution, called TrekEase, approximates an arcade driving game. Users back a manual wheelchair into a frame, engage the flywheel for resistance, and start the driving software. "When Chris approached me last year about using [TrekEase] as one of our senior design projects,...

We have a weekly lawn service that comes on Tuesdays. Usually they arrive while I'm still sleeping. No, the grinding lawnmowers and weedwackers don't wake me up! But sometimes they come in the early morning when I'm waking up in front of the TV. For some reason the dogs don't bark when they come early, but the bark like maniacs when they come and I'm up. Instead of listening to the barking for the next 15 minutes while they mow, I would usually "kennel up" both dogs in our guest bathroom. Recently I started just staying on the couch and yelling "Kennel Up!". Both dogs will run to the guest bathroom AND STAY THERE until I say OK to release them. I never have to move. Sweet. Yeah, I'm a dog trainer.

Man in wheelchair robs Texas 7-Eleven of condoms A robber rolled into a Dallas convenience store came armed with a bat and a knife. He left with a lot of condoms and an energy drink. Dallas police Cpl. Kevin Janse said Friday that a man in a wheelchair entered a Dallas 7-Eleven Wednesday afternoon, rolled straight toward the cash register and beat it with a baseball bat until it opened. But he didn't grab any cash. Instead, police say he stole 10 boxes of condoms and an energy drink before making his getaway Wednesday afternoon. Janse says the suspect may have been homeless and was likely intoxicated at the time of the robbery.