SAD: Teen paralysed after breaking his back when he dived into a shallow swimming pool

A football-mad teenager has been left paralysed after diving into a friend’s swimming pool that was only four feet deep.

Tristan Green, 18, from Prettygate in Colchester, broke his neck and was paralysed from the chest down. He is expected to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

His father, James, 38, said: ‘Unless there is a complete miracle, he will be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.’

He told the Colchester Gazette: ‘I look at pictures of me and him playing football and break down.

‘We have had some hope because he wiggled his left toe and moved his right foot but it could be 18 months before we know the full effects.

‘We need to be supportive for him to get through this.’

Mr Green Jnr was playing at a friend’s swimming pool with his girlfriend, Lauren Faulkner, in Colchester, when he sustained the catastrophic injuries on July, 26.

His mother, Dawn, said he stood on the edge of the swimming pool and jumped in with his palms stretched out together in a forward motion.

She said: ‘He then floated to the top of the water.

‘Lauren thought he was just messing around. He was laying with one arm out, facing down in the water and she saw him turn his head.

‘She realised something was wrong and got into the pool herself and spun him over onto his front.

‘He said to Lauren he couldn’t move.’

Miss Faulkner, her friend and her friend’s mother then moved him on to a metal garden chair.

She then called Mr Green Snr, who spotted a lump on the back of Tristan’s head and called an ambulance.

Paramedics needed firefighters to cut him out of the chair so they could put him on a spine board.

Two days later, he underwent a six-hour operation on his neck and had another one the next day.

He was put under sedation for a fortnight and has remained in the neurological critical care unit since the accident.

He is hooked up to a ventilator and is having to learn how to breathe independently again. He still has a tracheostomy to create an opening in his windpipe to help him breathe.

At present, he is communicating by lip reading and making a clicking noise with his mouth to call for nurses.

A Facebook page called Tristan’s Road to Recovery was set up after the accident to allow the family to update friends and relatives on his progress. It currently has 1,045 ‘likes’.

A video has been uploaded to the page in which Tristan mouths to the camera: ‘Thank you for the support’.