Parsing JSON in mysql 5.5

I have a string stored as json in a mysql table. I need to parse the string and return the value within a stored procedure.

Does Mysql 5.5 support this?

I came across this UDF: https://github.com/ChrisCinelli/mysql_json

Unfortunately, I cannot install this UDF on my mysql server due to operational issues.

How to parse json in mysql?

Note: We use percona version of MySQL