‘I couldn’t move anything from my neck down’

Twenty-one-year-old Jack Kavanagh is sitting in the kitchen of his apartment on Trinity College’s front square and he has just finished a laboratory report. “It’s just a really nice feeling to say I’m doing that,” he says.

Less than 18 months ago, in August 2012, he broke his neck and has been in a wheelchair since.

After the Leaving Cert Kavanagh was offered a place on Trinity’s pharmacy programme. “First year was pretty much as good as it gets,” he says. “I made great friends and did well in my exams. I was working hard and partying hard.”

He attributes his passion for windsurfing to many summers spent in the west of Ireland. He worked for spells in Uisce, the Irish language water sports centre in Belmullet, Co Mayo, and became an instructor and lifeguard.

He saved money for college and for a trip to Portugal with his friends. When the holiday came around, Kavanagh spent his entire first day on the beach. “On one occasion, I dived into the water over a wave and whatever way the sand had shifted, the water was shallower than it had been and I hit the bottom,” he says.

“My head snapped back and I broke my neck. At that point my whole body just went limp. I wasn’t in very deep water but I rose up to the surface. I was face-down and I couldn’t move anything from my neck down. I was very lucky I had so much experience in the water and that I had been trained as a lifeguard because had I panicked I would have ended up in an awful lot worse of a situation.

“It was kind of strange. This sort of serene calmness came over me. I was very aware of what had happened to me. I was conscious the whole time. Just as I was beginning to think I didn’t have very much longer before I blacked out, one of my friends pulled me over.

“I told him I couldn’t move anything and that I thought I had broken my neck. The lads lifted me out on to the beach. The paramedics were called. About 40 minutes later, the paramedics arrived and I was lifted up off the beach on a stretcher into the ambulance.

“It was only at that point that my breathing really started to go. The lads had been brilliant on the beach. They actually lay down on the ground beside me and talked to me, kept me calm and asked me how things were changing.

"I got into the ambulance and was carted off to a helipad. The next time I woke up I was in a hospital bed, strapped down, with my head in a cage, and I wasn't really fully aware of what was going on."

Learning
The following number of months were spent learning. Learning to breathe. Learning to eat. Learning to move.

“It was an absolutely hectic time,” he says. “When I had the injury first I thought I would be back to college in a matter of weeks. I was living day-to-day, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute. It was the only way you can get through.”

As he began to get stronger, Kavanagh also spent time researching his condition. “I wanted to be as informed on everything as I could be. I was constantly challenging things and pushing things.”

He says he wants to create “a new normal” for himself.

“There were plenty of little milestones from being able to transfer in and out of bed with the help of one person, to being able to get into the front seat of the car – these were all massive steps towards independence.

“My first week back in college was almost a bit of a blur. The first term was really challenging because I was just shattered all the time. The demand on my energy was just something I hadn’t experienced in the previous couple of months.

“It was an absolutely brilliant experience though because I had all my friends around again and I was living on the front square in Trinity – the best location you could have in Dublin. The house was like a train station and the support I got was phenomenal.”

During a trip to Cambridge with his father for specialist physiotherapy, Kavanagh was given the opportunity to walk again. “I got to walk in a robotic suit which was phenomenal. It was a very emotional experience to be up there again and to be able to give my dad a hug at eye level.”