***Before and after photos of Jeff Delrie can be found by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlBjr7qD4x4 ***
HUDSON, Fla. – For the month of September, Alfred Bonati, M.D., Founder of the Bonati Spine Institute, will be recognizing National Pain Awareness Month.
To kick off the month, Dr. Bonati is highlighting an uplifting story about a patient who was promised a life of pain and paralyzation, but ended up being healed at the Bonati Spine Institute.
In November of 2015, Jeff Delrie of Louisiana, then 58, was left paralyzed and wheelchair-bound after a hunting accident. He had fallen directly onto his head from a tree while assembling a deer stand, crushing several vertebrae and pinching his spinal cord.
After arriving at a New Orleans hospital eight hours later and being treated there for six weeks, he made no progress. He was told not only that he would experience severe back pain for the rest of his life, but that he would never walk again.
Doctors at a second hospital concurred.
Delrie then contacted the Bonati Spine Institute, where he had undergone surgery previously for chronic pain in his right arm that left him unable to lift anything. That surgery resulted in regaining the full use of his arm.
In March of 2016, he enlisted Dr. Bonati’s help again.
He underwent a surgery to regain the use of his legs at the Bonati Spine Institute, during which he remained awake under conscious IV sedation so he could communicate with Dr. Bonati, a practice which is unique to the Bonati Spine Institute.
After only six days, he was up and walking again, and was ready for a second surgery to help him regain the use of his arms and hands. He regained full function of those, too.
“It was just like flipping a switch,” Delrie said of his surgeries. “The pain went away instantly.”
“It was miraculous. Everyone else, every other doctor I talked to in the medical world was convinced that I would never walk again,” Delrie said. “They said I was destined to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair and in bed, but Dr. Bonati knew that didn’t have to be the case.”
Dr. Bonati recalls a remarkable moment during the procedure on Delrie’s legs.
“When Jeff began to move his legs for the first time since his accident, he kicked so hard that he knocked over a medical tray from the operating table,” said Dr. Bonati. “That was all the proof we needed to know that Jeff’s surgery was successful.”
Dr. Bonati says that the bottom line during National Pain Awareness month is that patients seek opinions from medical practitioners outside of the large hospital conglomerates.
“You do not have to live in pain,” said Dr. Bonati. “Most of my patients have been told by other doctors that there is nothing they can do for their pain to be relieved. We know that when it comes to chronic back and neck pain, something can always be done. We’ve been treating it for almost 40 years.”
Dr. Bonati uses a patented surgical technique and patented tools in his minimally invasive surgical procedures, which have a 98.75 percent self-reported patient satisfaction rate. He does not use spinal implants.
Delrie is now 67, and though he still requires physical and occupational therapy, he lives a normal life.
He still goes hunting, too.
“As a matter of fact, I killed a deer two years ago,” he said. “My son-in-law took me hunting. I’ve still got my eye for shooting.”
About The Bonati Spine Institute:
For nearly 40 years, The Bonati Spine Institute, led by Dr. Alfred O. Bonati, has provided world class surgical treatment to patients suffering from spine pain. Dr. Bonati and his team of highly trained specialists have successfully performed nearly 80,000 patented procedures, helping patients with spine pathologies. While the Bonati Spine Institute is located in the Tampa Bay area, patients from all over the world have sought Dr. Bonati’s care, often after other doctors tried and failed to relieve their pain. Of those patients seen, 65 percent have had a history of failed back surgery prior to coming to the Bonati Spine Institute. The Bonati Spine Institute has received a patient-reported satisfaction rate of higher than 98 percent.
Jeff Delrie is available for interviews with the media. Please contact Peter D’Abrosca at 720.639.0066 or peter.dabrosca@judgepr.com to schedule an interview.