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Paralyzed Dancer Who Regained Ability To Walk To Be Featured In Rose Bowl Parade

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Doctors said she would never walk again, but a young woman who became a quadriplegic after a dance injury is taking her first steps towards a bright future.

At 16, dancing was Meg Throckmorton's passion, and on April 13, 2012, it was her passion that changed her future.

"I was doing a round-off back tuck, I didn't make it over and landed on my neck and broke my C2 vertebrae," said Throckmorton.

She was practicing for a dance competition when the accident happened that made her a quadriplegic.

"I was unable to breathe and I was paralyzed from the neck down," she said.

She was flown to WVU Children's Hospital in Morgantown, West Virginia and spent 12 days there.

Doctors thought she'd never regain movement or feeling below her neck, but it was at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta where everything changed.

"You have a schedule every day," she said. "You're learning how to take care of yourself, taking educational classes, going to occupational and physical therapy every day."

After six weeks, Throckmorton stood on her own. She returned home four months later.

About a year after the accident, she is walking again without help and can breathe on her own. She still has some trouble with her left arm.

"It was definitely life-shattering at first," she said. "I was really young; I figured I was in good shape. Technology is changing. Medicine is changing."

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Now 20-years-old and a sophomore studying finance at Waynesburg University, Throckmorton will appear before millions in the Rose Bowl Parade.

She'll be standing on a float sponsored by WVU Children's Hospital and the Children's Miracle Network. She's in California now for the festivities.

"I will be seen on television, so it's a little nerve-racking but exciting," Throckmorton said.

But more than participating in this parade, she wants her story to inspire others who might want to give up.

"Don't always accept what you're told," she said. "If I had accepted what I was told, maybe I wouldn't have had the high spirits I had."

This will be the first time West Virginia has had a float in the parade since 1963.

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