Experts Say Neymar's Injury Could Cause Paraplegia

07/11/2014 - 09h10

According to the doctors heard by Folha there was a risk Neymar could be paraplegic (lose the movement of his legs) and end his career prematurely if the injury had been a few centimetres deeper.

The player was emotional when he said this Thursday (10) he could be in a wheelchair if the injury had been "2 centimetres deeper".

The player's fracture, located in the third vertebra, was close to a structure of the nervous system called "cauda equina", which connects the spinal cord to the nerves that activate the muscles of the legs.

"Although the injury was not so close to the spinal cord itself, it could have affected the movement of his legs if deeper", says João Amadera, a spine expert and Director of the Spine Centre HCor (Hospital do Coração), in São Paulo.

The orthopedic surgeon Rene Abdalla also says the damage would be quite serious if a piece of the fractured vertebra had gone into the medullary canal.

Damages to the cervical spine, closer to the neck, can lead to death or cause quadriplegia. The player's injury was below, in the lumbar spine.

Abdalla recalls, however, that Neymar's injury is stable and it does not offer any risk.

Translated by JULIANA CALDERARI

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