Lakeville Girl Injured in Hockey Mishap has Feeling in Arms

A Lakeville girl who suffered a spinal injury during a hockey game on Jan. 7 still can't move her legs, but has feeling and movement in her arms according to a Facebook support page updated by her family.

Jenna Privette, 18, of Lakeville, and a senior at St. Croix Lutheran High School in West St. Paul, was hurt during a Friday night hockey game when she was checked from behind and hit the boards with her head. She lost feeling in her arms and legs immediately following the collision.

"It happened right in front of me," her father, Dan Privette, told the Star Tribune. (A video of the check can be seen here.)

That night, when Privette was taken to the emergency room, she still had a Number 13 painted on her cheek, according to a report in the Associated Press. Her father said she did it to honor Jack Jablonski, a Benilde-St. Margaret’s sophomore who was paralyzed Dec. 30 when he was checked from behind.

Both Privette and Jablonski are at Hennepin County Medical Center. Privette is in satisfactory condition and, according to a report in the Star Tribune, her injury isn't believed to be as severe as Jablonski's, whose spinal cord is completely severed.

doctors don't expect him to ever regain use of his arms, hands or legs.

Meanwhile Privette's spinal cord appears to be intact.

"She's had an MRI, and it did not show breaks in the spinal cord, which makes it different than Jablonski's [injury]," Carl Lemke, athletic director at St. Croix Lutheran, told the Star Tribune. "It's an injury she's had in the past. Hopefully, it will improve." Privette's father said she had a similar injury in eighth-grade, but made a full recovery.

The Privette and Jablonski injuries have sparked a .

Regardless, checking is not allowed in girls hockey.

Lakeville Patch will have more on this story as it develops.