prayers needed

a coworker's son is in bad shape. we don't have many details yet. all we know is that he was at the beach, there was some sort of an incident (if skimboarding was involved, any and all guests will be banned from having them here!), he had a fall in the ocean, and has broken three vertebrae in his neck. he is currently on a ventilator in an induced coma but the doctors are telling hs that they believe best case scenario is that he will be paralyzed from the waist down, worst case from the neck down. of course, they won't know for sure the extent of damage until they wake him up. this boy is only 18 (maybe 19 by now) and getting really close to being a father. i cannot express how my heart is breaking right now. i hope and pray that the doctors are wrong and that he is able to make a full recovery.

update: 15:55 - hubby just spoke with hs. his son was just playing in the ocean, jumping waves, when one of them flipped him over and he landed on the ocean floor on his neck. he was instantly paralyzed (which i assume means that he was fortunate enough to have someone really close by that was able to pull him out of the water before drowning). he shattered three cervical vertebrae, including the c1 (at the very top) and c6 (which is around the region of the spinal cord that controls breathing). they are going to do surgery on wednesday to try to repair the c6 vertebra so that he can breathe on his own again. they won't know until after that surgery how extensive the paralysis might be but they are telling hs that there is a very slim chance he will ever walk again. my heart is just full of pain on behalf of the whole family.