WITH BROKEN NECK

Northern Advocate, 21 December 1932, Page 9

WITH BROKEN NECK

MAN CA LIMES ON AS NORMAL. WALKED ABO El’ FOR SEVEN WEEKS. NOW UNDERGOING TREATMENT. iSpeeial lo “Northern Aitvoea ie.”i AUCKLAND, This Day. To walk about for seven weeks with a broken neck, and to escape death by the “fraction of a millimeter’’ hits been the fortune of Mr Samuel Flavell, Gladstone Road, Northcote. He is now in the Auckland Hospital, and lies strapped to a. steel frame. Mr Flavell is (ill years of age, and on November 1, he was injured while riding in the front seat of a motor lorry. The vehicle jolted over a rut, and he was thrown against the dashboard. Mr Flavell did not attach any importance to his injury, thinking he merely had a sore neck. Mr Flavell suffered some pain, but did not seek medical advice, and four days later went to the races.

lie continued to walk about, ignorant that a. minor jolt might kill him, and that ho was “walking into death.” Ho suffered agony, ami finally, four days ago, was ordered by a doctor to have an X-ray photograph taken. It was then revealed that he had received a fractured dislocation of the cervical vertebrae. The spinal cord was missed by a hairbreadth, and the doctors state that Mr Flavell would have been killed by the slightest jolt, which would have severed the spinal cord.. Mr Flavell is now being treated at the Auckland Hospital, and there is every hope of a complete recovery.