Overview
- About a week after diving headfirst into a roughly 60 cm deep hotel pool at Ballermann, Max Dettmann was found to have fractures of his first and seventh cervical vertebrae.
- Surgeons operated and fitted a halo fixator, a metal frame anchored to the skull that holds the head and cervical spine rigid to allow broken vertebrae to fuse.
- Clinicians report that Dettmann’s spinal cord and nerve roots were not injured, which explains why he can feel his limbs and has begun standing and taking short steps in the Mallorca clinic.
- He is documenting recovery on TikTok, says the halo will likely stay in place for three to four months, and doctors will use intermittent CT and X-ray scans to check bone healing.
- A medical transfer to Germany is being organized in the coming days, and his case highlights the life‑threat posed by neck injuries from diving into unknown or shallow water.