OUR BOY IS A FIGHTER

A freak wave shattered his vertebrae leaving this Durban teen paralysed but his family still have hope

- CARLA BRIERS

HE CAN’T get the image out of his mind.

It’s been three months and he still gets flashbacks to that terrible moment when his son lay face down in the water.

At first Reggie Pillay wasn’t that worried. His son, Tylor (17), was a strong swimmer so when Reggie saw a big wave crash over his boy and sweep him off his feet he thought he’d be fine.

But then two more waves rolled in and Tylor vanished underneath the water.

Reggie, watching increasingly anxiously from the beach, was relieved when he saw his son surface – but his relief was short lived when he noticed Tylor didn’t seem to be moving and was floating further out to sea.

He and a bystander raced into the surf to rescue the teen. They took Tylor to the lifeguard station on the beach, but fear started to turn Reggie’s veins to ice.

“He wouldn’t stop screaming because of the pain,” Reggie recalls. “He said, ‘Dad, I can’t move my body, my neck hurts’.”

When paramedics arrived they confirmed his suspicion: in the process of being struck by the waves, Tylor had probably hit the sand and injured his spine.

The drama happened on the beach at Salt Rock on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast and Tylor was rushed to Dr Pixley Ka Isaka Seme Memorial Hospital in KwaMashu near Durban.

He had tests and scans done and the news wasn’t good: Tylor’s C6 vertebra was completely shattered which meant he could feel nothing from the chest down.

When he heard those words Reggie felt sick. His son’s life would never be the same again.