Reborn in the USA

Sang Lan's room looks like the classic bedroom of any American teenage girl. The walls are adorned with pictures of the Spice Girls, Leonardo DiCaprio and Celine Dion, and there is standing room only on the bed and window sills for the scores of stuffed animals.

Even the squeeze ball Sang is constantly moving between her fingers, bearing a New York Giants' logo, is pure Americana.

But although the room's adornments say much about the occupant's regular teenage tastes, they say even more about her own, tragic position. The photos lovingly pinned to the wall are not standard teen magazine posters, but personal photographs in which Sang herself stars.

There she is, smiling bravely at the camera with Dion, DiCaprio and Jackie Chan; and those two cuddly toys by the window - an elephant and a bear - are gifts from, of all people, two former presidents, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

The 17-year-old Sang has also received signed letters from President Bill Clinton and vice-president Al Gore - mementoes to treasure all one's life.

But perhaps the most meaningful letter in her possession has come from Christopher Reeve, the actor paralysed in his prime by a riding accident.

'I would like to take this opportunity to offer you all of my best wishes and to congratulate you on your courage and heroism,' Reeve writes.

'I know how difficult it can be to sustain such a traumatic injury, especially to an athlete such as yourself. But I also know that a cure is not impossible.' Those sentiments - sorrow and hope - sum up life as it now stands for Sang: China's national gymnastics champion was, like Reeve, in the middle of a fulfilling career when, two months ago, the worst of all athletes' nightmares took place in New York.

Practising a routine vault before competing in the Goodwill Games, she inexplicably slipped and landed on her head. She severed her spinal cord between the fifth and sixth vertebrae, and would not get up again.

Paralysed from the waist down, and possessing only part use of her arms and hands, Sang is now recovering at Mount Sinai Hospital, where she is without doubt in the care of America's - and thus the world's - finest spinal cord injury specialists.

If Reeve's courageous battle against even more horrific injuries captured the imagination of the nation, Sang's situation has seen her running a close second.

An outpouring of sympathy from Americans - celebrities as well as the man on the street - has brought the tiny athlete the kind of fame she once hoped to have earned not from tragedy, but from her achievements in the gymnastics arena.

It has also brought much-needed financial help, in the form of US$70,000 (HK$541,100) in donations which have poured in to a fund established in the wake of her accident.

While the public's reaction has brought her great comfort, she is also somewhat bemused at being in the spotlight.

'I don't think I deserve all this attention,' she said in an interview. 'But I am very happy at the encouragement from people, and it has helped me get through all this.' She was thrilled by the immediate response from her heroes, including DiCaprio, who spent an hour at her bedside, and Chan, who cheered her up by discussing his own litany of injuries - and showing her his scars to prove them.

She said that much of what happened on that July day remains blurred.

'I remember doing my warm-up before, going through everything in my head.

'During the vault, my hand slipped and I knew I was out of control. I do not remember exactly how I fell, because I lost consciousness.

'When I woke up, I knew I had been hurt very badly. The only thing I could move were my eyes. As I lay there, I was thinking about another gymnast back home who had a similar injury.' In contrast to Reeve, the good news for Sang is that she has recovered the use of her arms and can breathe without a respirator.

The bad news, according to Dr Kristjan Ragnarsson, head of rehabilitation medicine at Mount Sinai, is that it would be 'almost miraculous' if she were ever again to rise from her wheelchair.

'She has neurologically complete spinal cord injury, and the prognosis for recovery is very poor,' said Dr Ragnarsson.

'The bad news is that there has not been any significant change in her neurological condition. Her lower extremities, her legs as well as her hands remain as paralysed as they were before . . . But the good news is that the muscle strength in her shoulders, elbows and neck is improving.' Sang is taking Sygen, an experimental drug which helped an American footballer, Dennis Byrd, walk again after what could have been a catastrophic spine injury. Byrd was another of her recent visitors, and his signed picture also adorns her wall.

Sadly, although the drug may be helping her spinal chord heal above the site of the injury, doing anything else is beyond its scope.

Instead, doctors' attention is being focused on rehabilitation, and her day is filled with painful and tiring exercises designed to prepare her for a life in which she can make the most of her limited means.

Mount Sinai says its rehabilitation programme is designed to help Sang 'achieve maximum potential and achieve maximum independence in self-care and mobility and enhance her transition back to everyday activities.' Already, the regime has helped her start to feed herself, partly dress herself, and slide out of bed into her wheelchair.

By the middle of next month, doctors hope she will be able to leave the hospital and join her parents in an apartment nearby, arranged by Mount Sinai.

Many months of further rehabilitation therapy will be needed before she is ready, if she chooses, to return to her hometown of Ningbo, near Shanghai.

To doctors, and her friends, the most amazing part of the Sang Lan story is her stoicism and her determination not to lapse into despair.

Although she at first vowed to walk again, she has taken the news of her condition well.

Dr Victor Yin, who interpreted for Sang in her first few days in a Long Island hospital immediately following the accident, said: 'She is very strong.' Some people cry, they get very depressed. But she has taken it in her stride pretty well. 'Never did I see her cry.' Dr Ragnarsson agreed, saying: 'She is a wonderful representative of the Chinese people. She has taken the news with maturity and has not fallen into depression.

'She has a wonderful personality. Although I don't want to compare patients because they are all wonderful, but she is particularly great and particularly hard-working.' Sang, who has the frail appearance of a child much younger than her 17 years, appears to possess the inner strength of someone three times her age. 'I am not angry,' she said of her plight. 'The only thing I wonder about is why it happened at the moment it did.

'It was not even the most difficult vault. That vault is my best.' She acknowledges being homesick, a condition which she alleviates with occasional phone calls to her friends and fellow gymnasts back home.

Sang now knows her future lies more in making use of her mind than her body; she has begun English lessons, and hopes to take some kind of arts degree before deciding what to do next.

For her parents, the irony of the tragic accident is that they now get to see their daughter far more than they ever did.

Like so many promising young athletes, Sang left home at the age of 11 to attend China's National Sports Centre, where her military-style training rarely afforded her the time to return.

'Of course, we are very sad,' said her father, Sang Shisheng, a housing official in Ningbo. 'Now, the only thing we want is for her to get better. We cannot think of anything else - the future is too far ahead.' For the mid-term, the family's financial future seems secure. Once lawyers have set up a trust fund for the US$70,000 in donations, they will be able to live on it.

Her medical costs - which will inevitably be astronomical - are being taken care of by the insurance policy carried by the Goodwill Games.

Last week Sang saw the sun and breathed fresh air for the first time since her accident.

A Chinese family connected to the gymnastics world who are helping look after her, Gina and K S Liu, invited her to a party at their home in the Westchester county suburbs of the city.

In a day filled with joy, Sang managed to swim with the aid of a life-jacket in their outdoor pool, and joined in a karaoke session of Chinese pop songs. The festivities were captured on camera by ABC television, whose star reporter Connie Chung is filming a news segment about Sang.

Perhaps the most poignant moment of the day came when the Lius brought in a cake.

It was not her birthday, but the message which was iced on the top said it all: 'To Sang Lan - reborn in America'.