For Sandra Nette, September 13, 2007 started out like every other day. She got up, admired the beautiful views of the North Saskatchewan River from her bedroom window, enjoyed a hazelnut coffee in the morning sun, showered and kissed her husband goodbye before heading off to work.

It was a routine morning for the extremely active 40-year-old Edmonton career woman. The rest of her day and the rest of her life would be anything but ordinary.

It all changed less than an hour after a visit to her chiropractor, Dr. Gregory Stiles, when Sandra suffered a major stroke that left her paralyzed. The once busy oil and gas manager, dinner party host and world traveler now lies supine for 24 hours in the same bed -- every day.

Sandra Nette's husband, David, recalls her achievements before that fateful day -- classically trained piano player, ace spaghetti sauce maker, gregarious hostess and ambitious business woman -- and now laments her loss. Paralyzed, trapped in her own body, David Nette still has trouble coming to grips with the sudden change in his spouse.

"My wife was a highly energetic young woman. She was robbed of so much," Nette told W-FIVE.

Today, she can barely swallow and is fed through a tube. She has 24-hour care and needs help just to roll over. Her lungs are cleared throughout the day and night by a suction machine. She is monitored and cared for by three people throughout the day, with David, his sister Diane, and his daughter Linda, all looking after Sandra's most basic needs.

According to Nette, and court documents obtained by W-FIVE, after having her neck adjusted by her chiropractor, Sandra first began to feel dizzy and light-headed. She had been seeing her chiropractor for seven years. On the drive home along the Yellowhead Highway, Sandra's symptoms got worse, so she called her husband from the car.

"I said, 'I'm not a doctor, but you can't see straight, you're dizzy, you're disoriented, you can't drive, your finger's tingling, your lip's tingling. Sandy, we've got to get you to a hospital, we've got to get to emergency,'" recalls David Nette.

When her husband reached her, only 10 minutes later, she was slumped over and could not move her legs. By the time they arrived at the nearest hospital, Sandra was convulsing and slurring her words.

Doctors later told Nette she had suffered multiple strokes from a tear to both vertebral arteries, leaving her with "locked-in" syndrome -- a condition leaving her conscious and aware, but unable to move or speak. All she could do was blink.

David, who has now become her primary caregiver, described how their life has changed.

"One minute she was a vibrant woman. Then I spent six months by her side -- turning her, encouraging her, exercising her limbs, rubbing out sores, filing her nails, and brushing her teeth."

Sandra spent six months in hospital and another five months at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital, one of the most advanced of its kind in the world, before returning to her Edmonton townhouse last summer.

The Nettes have had to make major and expensive renovations to their home so that Sandra can live there. The bathroom is now equipped with a roll-in shower and an elevator has been installed -- all to give Sandra some mobility around the house. Sandra spends two days every week in physical and speech therapy.

Seeking fault

Sandra Nette blames her chiropractor for her condition. She and husband, David, are suing Dr. Gregory Stiles, the Alberta College and Association of Chiropractors and the Alberta government's Ministry of Health and Wellness. Joining the Nettes, seeking to make this a class-action lawsuit, are dozens of others in Alberta, who claim their injuries were also caused by a chiropractic neck adjustment. The suit still needs to be certified by the Court and no court dates have been set.

In addition to seeking compensation for their alleged injuries, the group is challenging the very legitimacy of chiropractic neck adjustments, believing there is no scientific reason for neck manipulation. They have included the Alberta government because, in many instances, the province subsidizes chiropractic treatment under the provincial health plan.

"What our lawsuit says is that there is no scientific basis to demonstrate that upper neck manipulation provides any benefit to individuals," their lawyer Daryl Wilson told W-FIVE.

Chiropractors insist that neck adjustments are standard procedure and commonly performed by their profession to the benefit of their patients.

"We see amazing things in our office. I have seen patients who have such chronic pain and such misery that they literally can't go and have a coffee without going back to bed for three hours," Dr. Wanda MacPhee told W-FIVE. "After you're able to relieve that discomfort for them and get them moving again, get them functioning, get them exercising, they're lives change. There is nothing more amazing than seeing that."

MacPhee is a practicing chiropractor and spokesperson for the Canadian Federation of Chiropractic Regulatory Boards, the organization that recommends standards for most chiropractic colleges across Canada.

MacPhee added that "there is not a significant risk to chiropractic adjustment and that's also what we're seeing in the scientific literature."

Some chiropractors suggest that the risk of stroke from neck manipulation is very remote -- one in a million; while others like Dr. Scott Haldeman, a chiropractor and practicing neurologist in California, question any connection at all between chiropractic neck manipulation and strokes.

"Some recent research has shown that there's an equal likelihood of having a stroke following a family practitioner or primary care physician as there is following a chiropractor," Haldeman told W-FIVE.

However, critics such as Edmonton neurologist Dr. Brad Stewart, claim it's an unnecessary and dangerous practice because it can tear an artery in the neck and cause a stroke. Regarding the number of occurrences, he states that according to the New England Journal of Medicine, strokes occur roughly in one in 20,000 neck manipulations.

"The reality is that just about every neurologist in Canada has seen strokes following manipulation," said Stewart.

However, chiropractors assert the practice is safe. "If the neck was fragile there would be no hockey players, there would be no football players. We wouldn't survive a car accident. Necks are very capable," MacPhee insisted.

While chiropractors and their critics debate the risk and benefits of neck adjustments, and await a court of law to decide who is right, Sandra and David Nette continue to contemplate what followed her last visit to a chiropractor and, more importantly, what their future holds.

"It's a living nightmare. It's the worst possible existence that you can ever imagine."