Freak condition that hits the young and healthy
SURFER’S myelopathy occurs when a blood vessel gets ‘pinched’ as the spine is hyper-extended while moving to a standing position on a surfboard. Like a stroke in the brain, this starves the lower spinal cord of oxygen, resulting in partial or total paraplegia. Only 64 cases have been reported worldwide since it was identified in 2004, according to the medical journal Neurology. It states that it ‘almost uniformly affects young, healthy, novice surfers’.