Spinal Injuries Prevention
Diving in unknown waters could lead to a life spent in a wheelchair.
Annually, dozens of young people end up in a wheelchair as a result of diving accidents, at the pool, at the beach or in unexplored areas of rivers and lakes.
People who suffer from such accidents risk a life spent in a wheelchair, after head injuries resulting from hitting the riverbed or seabed.
Teenage boys and young men suffer such accidents the most often.
For fun, for thrill, or to impress friends, they are willing to try dangerous or spectacular dives.
Stemming from the wish to cool off or to accept a challenge from friends, and because they do not have enough information about the risks they are exposing themselves to, young people do not expect such an accident to happen to them and to consequently change their lives. But most of the time, when they dive, they hit their head on obstacles on the seabed.
The shock caused by the collision fractures their spine and injures the cervical spinal cord. Such injuries involve total or partial losses of mobility and sensibility below the injury. In other words, you cannot feel or move your own body!
„It was simple bad luck that one particular jump was let’s…say, wrong.“
Horațiu, 20 years
In the first months, injured persons cannot use their arms to hold objects, feed themselves, or otherwise do things that they found trivial before, like buttoning up shirts or tying shoelaces.
Later, depending on the gravity of the injury suffered and on the access to recovery services, some functions can be regained. However, most of the time, recovery is not total. Most of the people who experience such accidents need wheelchairs or other mobility equipment to move, since parts of the body and their functions are affected below the level of the injury.
These accidents are psychologically devastating too, for both the person who suddenly finds themselves powerless and for their family and close friends, who often do not know how to handle the new circumstances.
YOU too can prevent diving accidents this summer!
PROTECT
Talk to your friends and acquaintances about the risks of diving. Tell them how to avoid such accidents.
SHARE
Help make the stories of people who have suffered from such accidents known by sharing them on your social media channels. Thus, you can help prevent further accidents.
EDUCATE
Whether you are a parent, teacher or student, write to us at comunicare@motivation.ro if you want to talk more at your school, in dedicated courses.
A campaign for the prevention of spinal cord injuries, carried out by the Motivation Romania Foundation, in partnership with the Special Olympics Foundation of Romania.