Man breaks neck in holiday swimming pool dive

A man is in intensive care in a hospital in Turkey after breaking his neck while diving into a swimming pool on the last day of a holiday.

Will Ponter, from Carnforth in Lancashire, underwent a 13-hour emergency surgery, and doctors said the 24-year-old would be paralysed from the neck down.

His family are with him in Antalya with no timescale yet on when he will be stable enough to travel home, following the accident on Thursday.

His partner, Becky Francey, said: "We need to get him home, he's going to need special care. It's going to be a long road to recovery."

"In a second everything just changed," the 27-year-old said.

"I was stood on the side as he jumped in, but he didn't come back up for a while, and when he did he was just floating face down," she said.

"I knew he wasn't messing, so I dived in, and I pulled him out and he instantly said 'I can't move'."

Will was rushed to a local hospital, before being transferred "because of the severity of his injuries, there was nobody there that was capable of operating on him," Becky said.

She said as she was not allowed to ride in the ambulance with Will, two "wonderful" German men took her to the hospital, where one of the men paid the 4,000 euros needed for an operation.

"The surgery went extremely well," Becky said.

"They said that if he was any older they wouldn't have tried it, it was very risky surgery, but it went really well and he's breathing on his own now."

Will's family are now also in Turkey.

They are "the most wonderful people", Becky said, adding that Will is "such a loved person".

"We've spoken to him a little bit, but we can't stay with him for more than 15 minutes at the moment."

The couple did not have the insurance to cover all costs, and expected further costs to make their home accessible.

"I'm just trying to stay busy and make sure everything's sorted for him so we can get him home as soon as we can," Becky said.

"We just take it hour by hour, it's the only way to survive, but the kindness that has come out of all this has been incredible.

"The amount of support from home has really lifted us, it feels like a big hug from around the world."

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