A teenager remains in intensive care after suffering severe injuries in a freak diving accident at Hampton Beach.
The event occurred on Monday afternoon at Hampton Beach in New Hampshire, where 19-year-old Aiden Sloan was cooling off in the water with his cousins.
“He was diving into the waves, something I’ve done countless times, but it seems the water was shallower than he expected,” explained Michael McMahon, the Hampton Beach Fire Chief, to Fox News Digital.
Aiden’s mother, Melina Burton, agreed with McMahon’s account and shared her perspective with Fox News Digital, detailing what life has been like since receiving the news about her son’s injury.
Aiden Sloan’s mom Melinda Burton says he has a long road to recovery, but is hopeful he can rebound. (Melina Burton)
A GoFundMe page has been set up for Sloan, where he is described as having suffered from a broken neck.
“He misjudged the depth of some water at Hampton and, as a result, broke his neck,” the post read. “He is unable to move his legs and hands at this point but is able to move his arms. His mom, Melina, is a single mom and will need to be by her boy’s side as he recovers.”
Burton said it is too soon to tell if there is any permanent damage and said Sloan is just trying to be strong and take each day as it comes.
“The doctor met with him this morning just to kind of explain to him, one, the surgery that they did on him, and two, what exactly his injuries were. When they explained it to him the first time, he was so drowsy that he didn’t really understand,” Burton said.
“So they came back in this morning, they said that he has two things going for him. One, the fact that he’s 19, young and strong, and two, that they were able to operate on him within 12 hours of the injury. So the prognosis we don’t know yet, there’s a lot of different factors.”
Sloan, who is also a chef at a restaurant inside the Nash Casino, is receiving support from his employer, who is donating a portion of sales to his medical expenses.
“A member of our Greenleaf family, Aiden Sloan, unfortunately suffered a serious neck injury while having a fun day at Hampton beach earlier this week,” Greenleaf Milford wrote in a post on their Facebook page.
“Aiden joined our Greenleaf family at a young age, and we watched him grow as a person and a cook over the years and he and his family have our full love and support during these difficult times.”
Sloan is expected to remain in the hospital for several weeks before going to a rehab facility, Burton said, and is hopeful things turn around.
“They (doctors) ask him multiple times a day if he can move his hands and his fingers, if he could move his feet and toes, and if he can lift his knees. Or if he can feel anything in his midsection, and he gets very defeated and hopeless when he can’t,” Burton explained.
“And he doesn’t understand why they keep asking him to try these things. So he’s very tearful. He’s very emotional today, which for anybody who knows Aiden, it is not who he is at all. He is always smiling and joking and happy. And even when, you know, life isn’t going so great for him, he is still always just trying to make people laugh. So to see him so defeated and hopeless right now is really heartbreaking.”
Stepheny Price is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business. She covers topics including missing persons, homicides, national crime cases, illegal immigration, and more. Story tips and ideas can be sent to stepheny.price@fox.com
