He’s got legs: Paraplegic set to walk Port Royal 5K with robotic aid

Adam Gorlitsky will be the first to tell you there’s a certain “Ironman” quality to his walking regimen, perhaps with a little “Terminator” mixed in.

Strapped to a robotic exoskeleton, Gorlitsky pushes a button on his specialized watch, braces himself on two hand crutches and allows the machinery to stand him out of his wheelchair. The Charleston paraplegic hits another button and he’s ready to walk.

“It’s just an incredible feeling,” Gorlitsky said. “And it’s amazing technology.”

It couldn’t be more fitting for something called the Super Heroes vs. Villains 5K, a comic book-themed race taking place Saturday morning through Port Royal. Gorlitsky will start first, finish last — and almost certainly be hailed as the greatest superhero of the day.

“It’s so neat,” said race organizer Martha McDuff, who sponsors a girls’ running club at Port Royal Elementary School.

“I shared (his story) with my kids, and they all lit up. We talk about not giving up when it’s tough and things like that, and he puts a face to it.”

The Super Heroes 5K will be just Gorlitsky’s second race using the medical technology. Paralyzed from the waist down in an auto accident 10  1/2 years ago, he was first introduced to the exoskeleton only last August.

Earlier this month, he took part in the Cooper River Bridge Run, a 10K from Mount Pleasant to Charleston that attracts one of the largest fields in the nation. It took him more than six hours and three batteries, but Gorlitsky completed the route.

He even has the number of steps he took now tattooed on his forearm — 17,932.

“My abs were just destroyed afterward,” he recalled. “It was the best day of my life, though. I was truly living in the moment for the first time in a long time. It was an amazing feeling.”

Gorlitsky, 30, lived nearly two years in Beaufort as a child before his family moved to the Charleston area. He was a basketball player and cross-country runner during his days at Wando High, once running a 4:50 mile at age 15.

But in December 2005, he dozed off at the wheel while headed back home from Columbia on Interstate 26. The accident left him with a severed spinal cord, and he was told he’d never walk again.

He got into hand-cycling for a while, once covering 40 miles in a day, but the passion died out quickly. He could have entered the Bridge Run as a wheelchair racer, but never felt the competitive pull.

That changed when he was introduced to the exoskeleton. During his annual physical at Charleston’s Roper Hospital, a doctor suggested he’d be a perfect candidate for the contraption.

The feeling of being upright again opened his eyes.

“Literally the first time I stood up,” he recalled, “I said I’ve got to do the Bridge Run. I’ve got to do the Bridge Run.”

The exoskeleton, made by ReWalk, is an FDA-approved device that uses sensors on Gorlitzky’s hips to trigger the motor that moves his legs.

Gorlitsky will extend one crutch, lean forward and drive slightly with one hip, prompting the motor to pick up the appropriate leg and inch it forward. Then he does it for the other side, back and forth.

It’s a slow process, hampered by the motor’s fixed speed. He can cover only about 1  1/2 miles in an hour, though he certainly has room for improvement as he learns to shorten the delay between each weight shift.

He still can’t feel the ground underneath his feet, which an be a tricky proposition on uneven surfaces. Nonetheless, he’s moving forward.

“Through this whole process, I’ve gained a real appreciation of what fitness really is,” he said. “To me, fitness is taking control of your body, not your body taking control of you. And that’s exactly what this exoskeleton does for me.”

Last fall, Gorlitsky launched a website, IGotLegs.org, to raise funds to help purchase the exoskeleton. He’s since converted that into a nonprofit outlet in which he hopes to help introduce other paraplegics to the science.

“I think there are only 27 hospitals in the country that offer this type of technology,” he said. “And there are right around 3 million people that have spinal injuries.”

Saturday will bring an early wakeup call, with a 6:30 a.m. start at Live Oaks Park that will send him off 90 minutes ahead of the field. Rather than bring a “NASCAR pit crew” to change his battery midrace, he’s going to attempt to cover the entire 5K on one charge.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to finish the race,” he said. “But I’m glad that I don’t because now I get to really see if I can do a flat 5K without changing batteries. I think I can finish it. We’ll see.

“I love pushing everything to the limit, and that’s really the only way that this technology is going to get better — guys like me taking it to extremes.”

This story was originally published April 22, 2016 at 9:01 PM with the headline "He’s got legs: Paraplegic set to walk Port Royal 5K with robotic aid."