(KRON) – On Wednesday, a paralyzed tennis player carried the Olympic torch for the first time using a robotic exoskeleton suit.

After spending over 13 years of her life in a wheelchair, San Francisco native Keontae Clark, 26, is now the first patient to have a robotic exoskeleton suit through health insurance in the Bay Area. 

She says she pays nothing out of pocket and that the suit changed her life. Without Medicare, the nearly $100,000 suit would have been impossible to afford to walk in. 

In 2011, Clark endured a life-changing car accident and was hospitalized for a month. She also had several organs removed due to blunt force trauma, including the removal of her pancreas, her spleen, and her kidney. 

Since her car accident, Clark has been dealing with a T10 injury– a severe spinal cord injury that made her paralyzed from the waist down. “Something to get used to, for sure… It was a long process, and I’m still dealing with it to this day,” Clark told KRON4. 

Getting her exoskeleton suit took a lot of work. Clark said the suits were not only rare and expensive but, at the time, technologically underdeveloped. 

During the 13 years between her accident and trying several different types of physical therapy, Clark ended up gravitating toward metal braces and a walker for her mode of movement.

“Have you ever seen the movie Forrest Gump? Yeah, so basically, I had something very similar to what he had.” 

In 2023, someone approached Clark with a phone number that changed her life. 

Clark used to work near a BART station in San Francisco. Every day, she and a man, who she said was an amputee in a wheelchair, would greet each other. “He’d commute through BART every day, and we’d often speak to each other and say hi,” Clark said. 

“He just came to [Clark] one day” and gave her a phone number he said she should call. He said the number was of a doctor attempting to introduce exoskeleton therapy to the Bay Area. 

Ironically, after calling the number, Clark was told they were only doing therapy for stroke patients at the time. Despite not using the resource, her brother-in-law was actually able to start using the therapy for his hand after enduring a stroke several years back.

Eventually, after learning about the soft introduction of exoskeleton therapy in the Bay Area and being let down by several hopeful inquiries, Clark contacted SCIFIT in Dublin. 

SCIFIT told Clark there was hope. They said they were introducing forms of exoskeleton therapy to patients with spinal cord injuries and that she could come to at the least try out the therapy.  

A couple of bone density and vital tests later, Clark found herself walking in a 60-pound metallic suit that she described as somewhat stiff initially. She also thought the suit cost too much and that her chances of affording it were slim. 

Shortly after doing a trial run at SCIFIT and confirming her interest in the program, Clark came to her next session at the Dublin facility with physical therapists holding up a custom-made suit tailored to her body. 

Since Clark already had MediCal and received Medicare insurance due to her injury, SCIFIT physical therapists told her she did not have to pay anything out of pocket. Clark had spoken to someone who trained at the facility with an exoskeleton out of pocket, and he said he was paying $80,000 for the suit alone.

For the next four months, Clark commuted from San Francisco to Dublin twice a week to continue her physical therapy. Despite being initially stiff, Clark said that with the help of her physical therapists, she had gained the ability to start walking again. 

She says she’s been getting her muscle memory back. “I can take steps, I can go up and down the stairs, a curb, that kind of thing.” 

Last Monday, Clark got to take her exoskeleton suit home for the first time.

“This is really big for a lot of people, man. This helps people gain confidence and self-esteem…People just feel better about themselves. I know I do. I mean, just being able to stand up… after so long,” Clark said. 

As for the braces, she thinks, “I think I might not need them anymore.” In fact, her process has been so successful that she believes she can maybe walk one day without any help at all. 

“Maybe, you know, if I keep doing it a lot, hopefully I won’t even need [the exoskeleton] anymore. That’s my goal. But if that doesn’t happen, at least I got this far. Who knows, though? Maybe I’ll get a little further. But I’m happy.” 

She hasn’t necessarily seen anyone walk without the suit yet. “That’s not to say that nothing can’t happen. I believe it’s possible. I believe anything is possible,” she said. 

For now, Clark says the suit “enables me to do so much more.” As a worker at Urban Alchemy — a de-escalation project aiming to help vulnerable San Francisco locals — she’s hoping to start bringing her exoskeleton to work. “I would prefer to stand,” she said, “I’ve even spoken with my supervisor, and he said he’s okay with it.” 

Clark’s birthday is also coming up on July 28. “This is actually a perfect birthday present,” she continued, “I’m just in bliss. I’m proud of myself, too. For just having the will to do it…I had to think about it because I try not to boast, you know. But if it weren’t for my efforts, I wouldn’t have been anywhere” 

When asked if there was anything she wanted to specifically mention, Clark said the following: 

“A lot of people in my situation lose hope and ambition… I wanted it bad enough. You can do it too. You just got to want to do it, and you can do it. Take the opportunity, you know, why not? Don’t give up on yourself. Stay encouraged. Stay hopeful and keep the faith. You just have to believe in yourself… Don’t give up on living a life.”