SUNBURY -- A senior at Shikellamy High School in Sunbury knows what it's like to have something important taken away in an instant.
Seth Burk of Sunbury went from being a healthy athlete to being paralyzed from the waist down. But Seth is now back on his feet and recently had his moment to shine.
Seth says he has been involved with sports his whole life until a few months ago. Just before Thanksgiving, Seth got a flu shot. A few weeks later he says he did not feel well.
"I said, 'Mom, there's something just really not right.'"
Seth asked his parents to take him to the emergency room because he says his legs felt like cement.
"By three o'clock in the afternoon, I couldn't feel my legs from my quads down," Seth recalled.
He spent about a week in the hospital. His doctors told him he had Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which is when the body's immune system attacks its nervous system.
Seth's doctors say this side effect happens in about one in every 100,000 people who get a flu shot. His doctors said he was paralyzed from the waist down and they didn't know when he would walk again.
But it did not take this teenager long to start moving his legs during physical therapy.
His father videotaped one of his sessions.
"I couldn't move my knees, legs, anything. I couldn't feel it. I couldn't feel the ground when I was walking. I felt like I was floating on my hips in midair," said Seth.
Just a few weeks after that, Seth went back to school, first in a wheelchair and then using a walker. But the high school senior had a goal when it came time for one of the school's final track meets of the season.
"I said, 'I want to race one race.'"
That race was this past Tuesday.
"I had my whole family in the stands. I had everybody in the field, boys and girls rooting for me. For one moment, I had my moment. That's all I wanted, one more moment in high school."
Seth says he only started training a few weeks ago and was afraid he'd fall, but he didn't.
Seth's mother took video as he competed in the 200-meter dash.
Seth ran the race in 25.4 seconds, good enough for second place.
"I just couldn't believe I had just ran a race and four months ago, I couldn't move my legs at all," he said.
"He was there to try and accomplish his goal and that was to finish a race wearing the Shikellamy Braves uniform. Just a few months ago, I went to visit him in the hospital and he couldn't even walk," said Shikellamy track coach Jonny Evans.
"Positive determination takes you so far. The mind is such a powerful thing," said Seth.
Seth still needs more physical therapy to continue his recovery. After graduation, Seth plans to attend West Virginia University to pursue a career in nursing. He says he would one day like to be a motivational speaker.
