This calls for a standing ovation!
Eric LeGrand, the Rutgers football player paralyzed from the neck down by a bad tackle last October, is standing tall again.
“Standing up little by little in therapy,” he tweeted earlier this week.
The Twitter updates were accompanied by an amazing picture of the 6-foot-2 defensive tackle standing erect, a full head taller than mom Karen and flashing a victorious grin.
“Standing tall, we can’t fall,” he wrote. “Standing upright again.”
Therapists at a New Jersey rehab institute have LeGrand — whose can-do spirit has been inspiring — standing with the aid of a hydraulic lift.
LeGrand, 20, was paralyzed last Oct. 16 when two of his vertebrae were fractured during a kickoff return in the Rutgers-Army game.
“Only last week he was unable to take 20 degrees of standing, a squat position,” said physical therapist Sandra Wojciehowski.
“We were following the US women’s soccer team,” she said. “He was getting excited, and that helped his blood pressure, and he went to full standing.”
The Avenel, NJ, native stood for seven minutes on Wednesday, which required the use of his neck and shoulder muscles.
One of his biggest thrills is feeling tall again.
“When you are sitting in a chair, you are always looking up — and he now has the ability to look everyone at eye level again,” Wojciehowski said.
He’s scheduled for another session today.
LeGrand, who can move around with a motorized wheelchair he controls with his chin, attended an economics class via Skype in the spring.
He said he may switch his major from criminal justice to communications and pursue a career in sports broadcasting.
After he was injured, doctors gave LeGrand a 5 percent change of regaining neurological function.
But within a week he moved his shoulder and in early November was taken off a ventilator.
LeGrand now feels sensation throughout his body. And he’s hop ing to attend Rutgers games this fall.