Entertainment

DiCaprio Visits Chinese Gymnast

July 31, 1998 / 1:35 PM EDT / AP

Sang Lan, The Chinese gymnast paralyzed with a broken neck after a fall in the Goodwill Games, has had one wish come true: She was visited by her movie idol, Leonardo DiCaprio.

Hours after the teen-ager was transferred from the Nassau County Medical Center to a Manhattan rehabilitation clinic Thursday, the Titanic star appeared at her bedside.

Sang, 17, had been transferred to the Mount Sinai Rehabilitation Institute for what her family hopes will be the first step in a return to athletic competition. Doctors warn she may never even walk again.

Earlier this week, Sang said she hoped to meet DiCaprio. To buoy her spirits, she kept his picture on a bulletin board in the Long Island intensive care unit, along with cards from hundreds of well-wishers.

She even learned a few words of English just in case the 23-year-old movie star showed up: "Hi, how are you?"

On Thursday, presumably, she got to practice.

The details of her dream encounter are secret for now. The actor did pay a private visit, according to a one-sentence statement from his public relations firm. Hospital spokesman Mel Granick said only that the pair met for about an hour.

Sang had been disappointed when told that Titanic which is popular in China wasn't yet available on video. Paramount Pictures said it was sending her a copy.

China's 1997 national vault champion, Sang "is fascinated with American pop culture," said Shelley Lotenberg, spokeswoman for Nassau County Medical Center.

The teen-ager broke her neck during a Goodwill Games warmup vault at the Nassau Coliseum on July 21. She underwent surgery last Saturday, but has little sensation from the chest down. Doctors have discounted some toe movement as an involuntary twitch.

Still, her spirits have been high.

"I am so happy. I feel no more pain in my neck," she told a Chinese reporter earlier this week.

At Mount Sinai, she will benefit from "one of the few model spinal cord injury centers in the United States," said Dr. Brock Schnebel, chief medical officer for the Goodwill Games. But he said in a statement, "there has been no change in Sang Lan's neurological condition."

In addition to physical treatment, including an experimental nerve-building drug, the teen-ager will get moral support from Chinese staff doctors and students at the hospital on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

"We're going to translate for her. And we can give her another kind of care make her feel she's not alone," said Dr. Jian Dong of Mount Sinai.

Her parents brought her 1,000 paper birds, symbols of wishes for a quick recovery, from friends in China.

"I am sure she will be back to the competition circle becaus she is very courageous, and with the excellent medical (care), the doctors and hospitals in America," her father, Sang Shisheng, said earlier this week.

It was at Mount Sinai that New York Jets defensive end Dennis Byrd was treated for a paralyzing spinal cord injury he suffered during a game six years ago. His recovery was termed "miraculous."