The MRI showed a mass sitting inside the spinal canal at the level of the second lumbar vertebra, pressing on the bundle of nerve roots that controls the legs, bladder, and bowel. The 18-year-old woman on the table had fallen roughly 10 meters, striking a balcony before hitting the ground, and she could no longer urinate.
What surgeons lifted out, intact, was a piece of muscle measuring about 4.5 by 3 by 2 centimeters.
