BACK ON TARGET

Kyle scores first goal since terrifying spinal injury

- JORDAN SHEPHERD

A TEENAGE footballer who was told he may never walk again after a clot developed on his spine has fought back to score a goal for his team. 

Kyle Ritchie was 13 when he collapsed during training with Galston Boys’ Club, in May 2019.

He was rushed to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, in Glasgow, and diagnosed with a mass on his spinal cord which had caused it to rip – leaving him with no feeling from his ribs down and facing life in a wheelchair.

Medic s d e scribed hi s condition as like being “shot in the back with a gun” and told his mum Donna, 39, that his injuries would have been less severe if he had fallen out of a 10-storey building.

Kyle, 17, from Galston, near Kilmarnock, told the Record the news left him devastated.