A promising high school wrestler was left with ‘no feeling with the shoulders down’ after suffering a broken neck during last week’s state championship in Georgia.
Jefferson High School senior Dominic Haines, 17, is currently unable to eat or drink after suffering the grim injury during his quarterfinal match in Macon.
It was described as a ‘freak… one-in-a-million accident,’ and he was taken away on a stretcher to the hospital, where he is still undergoing treatment while feeling ‘hopeless, angry and scared’.
The teen has been in ‘excruciating pain’ and will undergo a second surgery on Thursday ‘to fuse the vertebrae from the back since the muscles and ligaments were all completely torn,’ his father revealed.
‘Heartbreaking,’ Zach Haines wrote earlier this week. ‘I hate seeing my boy in so much pain… PLEASE PLEASE PRAY FOR OUR SON.’
Zach Haines has been posting regular social media updates on his son’s condition, while – at the time of writing – nearly $70,000 had been raised via a GoFundMe page set up to support him on his ‘tough road ahead’.
A high school wrestler was left partially paralyzed after suffering a broken neck
Dominic Haines (r) was left with ‘no feeling with the shoulders down’, his father (C) revealed
The injury occurred after what was described as a ‘freak… one-in-a-million accident’
‘If this had not happened, I think he would have achieved that goal of being the state champion,’ his coach coach Kyle Baird said.
Instead, doctors had to ‘put a cage around his spinal cord’ and give the 17-year-old a breathing tube. Then, on Wednesday night, Haines Sr revealed that his son had suffered a setback and will now require a feeding tube to be inserted through his nose.
‘Dominic went and had x-rays done while he ate and drank a variety of things. They found that when he’s swallowing, things aren’t quite working like they should be,’ he wrote on Facebook.
‘So finding that out, they cut all food and drinks. Which is devastating for him. He hadn’t been able to eat anything other than pudding and jello, but he was enjoying us bringing him back different kinds of juices, smoothies and Powerades for him to drink. One step forward and two steps back on that.
‘Tomorrow he has his second surgery at 7:30 am and he’s ready to get that over with. He knows he’s going to be in a lot of pain, but understands it’s the next step in the process.’
He will be left with a scar – around three inches long – and will ‘more than likely lose about 25 percent of his range of motion in his neck.’
Earlier this week, meanwhile, Zach Haines detailed the ‘excruciating pain’ his son was in trying to sleep wearing a neck brace and oxygen mask.
He also opened up on his son’s rollercoaster of emotions over the past week as he tried to regain feeling throughout his body.
‘Dominic’s shoulders, upper to middle back and glutes are showing the most improvement and have the most strength,’ he wrote on Tuesday.
‘His feeling is about the same in his legs, but he’s feeling into the middle part of his stomach and about 3/4 down his arm.’
