Communication student defies life-changing injury
Most people who dive into the shallow end of swimming pools and hit their head are doomed to a life in a wheelchair, but this was not the case for third-year student Adriaan Frylinck.
Although he did break his neck, he was able to walk himself into the hospital and is now forced to wear a tight neck-brace for the foreseeable future.
Adriaan Frylinck spent Sunday, 22 December 2019, at a private resort next to the Vaal River with his family, and decided to go for a swim. However, Frylinck misjudged the depth of the pool and dove into the shallow end, hitting his head at the bottom. The cervical vertebrae pushed onto the 7th, causing it to snap.
Despite losing consciousness and feeling a little bit sore afterwards, he was still aware of his surroundings so didn’t think anything of it. He asked his sister’s boyfriend to help him crack his back but it did nothing for him, so that night his mother gave him Grandpa to help with the pain, hoping that he could sleep it off.
He woke up the next morning feeling a lot worse. His GP noticed that something was wrong and referred him to Mediclinic in Potchefstroom for X-rays. Doctors at the hospital conducted X-rays and were amazed that he was able to walk.
Nina-Rose Tidy, a senior medical student at Wits University, explained that there are a lot of nerves high up in the neck so when there is a lesion, fracture or break in the bone, even if the nerves aren’t directly lacerated (torn), you would still expected there to be swelling or compression on the nerves. This would cause a fall-out in one of the nerves or even paralysis of the muscles.
She explained that if there is damage to the cervical vertebrae, it affects the cervical nerves, which causes quadriplegia. “The fact that he didn’t end up paralysed is really amazing because somehow the position where he fractured his bone didn’t affect the nerves running through it,” she said.
Frylinck had a C-7 anterior fusion operation on 24 December 2019 and spent Christmas in ICU before he was discharged on the 26th. The C-7 anterior fusion involves chiselling away a piece of the hip bone and placing it in his neck where a plate and two screws now hold it in place.
Frylinck said that spending Christmas in the hospital was “pretty bad” because most of the other patients went home and his family was out having fun.
On 4 February he went for a routine check-up but X-rays showed that the bone had not attached yet, so he is forced to wear a neck brace for at least another two more months. The neck brace affects his mobility. He is able to attend classes and walk, but cannot exercise or do anything strenuous because of the strain it puts on his neck.
Frylinck is also unable to drive because if he hits a pothole it could reverse the progress from the operation and leave him back where he started.
He has another check-up on 3 March. In the meantime, recovery includes physiotherapy. At this time, they are only working on shoulder exercises, with neck exercises to follow.
Reflecting on the life-changing experience, Frylinck said, “The whole experience is still vivid in my mind and some days I still can’t believe that I’m alive and that I can still walk.”
