Hurt for a Decade, He Finally Finds the Path to Recovery

When Robert St. Pierre Jr. started coming to two years ago to swim and workout in the pool three days a week, he could hardly get out of his wheelchair.

St. Pierre badly injured his lower back in a fall in 2001, and surgery two years later to repair the damage didn’t go well.

"With all the nerve damage and muscle damage it never healed back," he said.

He was not accustomed to a sedentary life before the accident. He had work as a custodian at St. Raphael’s Hospital, in furniture construction, as a self-employed home remodeler, a restaurant cook and a landscaper.

In 2001, he was employed as a custodian at . He said he was cleaning a flight of stairs using a backpack vacuum cleaner when he missed a step and fell down the stairs.

"That’s the first time I ever got hurt on the job," he said.

St. Pierre required extensive back surgery for the damage. Doctors fused several vertebrae and inserted metal bolts to hold his spine together. Unfortunately, the operations left him an invalid.

He said his wife and three sons continued to support him and he has recovered much of his mobility with the help of his chiropractor, Dr. Bill Lordan.

Lordan said it was a credit to St. Pierre’s outlook that he kept looking for a new doctor who could help him instead of giving up after numerous doctors, orthopedic surgeons, acupuncturists, physical therapists and other chiropractors were unsuccessful.

He said he treated St. Pierre by adjusting the alignment of his spine with a special chiropractic instrument. "Once everything is aligned right and moving right and the pressure’s off the nerve, good things can happen," he said.

Since Lordan began treating him and he started working out at the YMCA about 18 months ago, St. Pierre said he has lost 35 pounds and gotten so much relief that he hardly uses his wheelchair at all. He still has to drive a specially equipped minivan with hand controls, however, because he hasn’t regained enough strength to work the foot pedals of a conventional car.

"I can walk now. I can do things I couldn’t do before," he said.

Three days a week he spends 1.5 hours in the pool, swimming, stretching and jogging in place. "I go in that pool, I do not want to come out," he said.

"I am determined to get better," said St. Pierre. "My plan is to keep on doing my best."

He believes he will recover completely eventually. "And one day I hope I’ll go back to work."