Gov. Wallace Set for Surgery to Ease Pain

Gov. George C. Wallace, wheelchair-bound since he was shot and paralyzed 13 years ago, will undergo a recently developed surgical procedure next week in an effort to relieve his incapacitating pain, his physician said today.

Dr. Sam Stover said the pain caused by Wallace’s paralysis has doubled in the last year, and he recommended that the governor go to Colorado for a procedure which was developed about two years ago.

Wallace will fly to Denver on Sunday and have the surgery Wednesday at Craig Hospital. He is to be hospitalized two weeks and return to Alabama before he would be required to turn over his duties to Lt. Gov. Bill Baxley.

The operation, known as the dorsal root entry zone procedure, involves exposing Wallace’s spine, inserting stainless steel electrodes into his spinal cord above and below where he was shot and sending radio frequency signals into the spinal cord to deaden the section, Stover said.