A 15-year-old Oxford boy was taken to the hospital with fractures to his lower spine after ledge-jumping and hitting a rock in the water, the Sun Journal newspaper reported.
Sonya Martin, the mother of injured teen Kaleb Martin, told the Sun Journal her son was ledge-jumping over Snow Falls in West Paris when he hit a rock in the water and needed to be rescued by members of six area fire departments and emergency response teams.
Teen injured after ledge-jumping in West Paris via @sunjournal >https://t.co/T5ESqM0xvy pic.twitter.com/1IzN5wpqfP
— CBS 13 News (@WGME) July 28, 2017
“I heard him hit the water,” Sonya Martin told the newspaper. “When he comes up I heard him make a noise … but then he started screaming, ‘Guys, I need you down here now! I can’t breathe. I can’t move.’ He said he felt paralyzed for a minute or two and his heart hurt to breathe. I could see his legs moving, but he was still in the water and he couldn’t come out of the water.”
A first responder for West Paris happened upon the scene in a kayak, Martin told the Sun Journal, and rescuers from fire departments in West Paris, South Paris, Woodstock and Oxford, as well as PACE Ambulance and Tri-Town Rescue then ultimately removed the boy from the water on a backboard. He was transported to Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway, then to the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital in Portland.
The Sun Journal reported that the teen was diagnosed with a fracture in his T12 thoracic vertebra, but that a day after the accident, he is recovering and in good spirits.