Sasha Pavlenko, the UD student who fell from a balcony during a St. Patrick’s Day party, is walking again.
The impact from the 20-foot fall not only KO’d her short-term memory of the event but also her ability to walk freely. She now uses a cane to get around.
Pavlenko, with the added mandatory course of physical therapy three times a week at Miami Valley Hospital, hopes to reach her goals — to walk without assistance, return to UD to complete her sophomore year and finish her degree program.
“The more I’m walking, the more I’m like OK I’m going to reach my goal,” she told News Center 7’s Natalie Jovonovich on Monday. “I’ll get there eventually.”
Some of the sensation in her feet and legs has returned. Some of it hasn’t. She has lived through a lot of tough days since March 17.
Pavlenko wants to create a teachable moment from her fall off that balcony at a house on Lowes Street in the student neighborhood.
“I hope that it can influence people in some way just to be careful and not take for granted the things that you have,” she said. “I just never thought in a million years this would happen.”
