Illinois High School Track Athlete Suffers Shocking Injury While Preparing for Triple Jump Oliver Penny/Getty Images

An Illinois high school track athlete suffered a horrific and life-altering injury while preparing for triple-jump competition last month.

On March 15, 18-year-old Dylan Westcott of Rock Falls High School was left paralyzed from the waist down after breaking his neck during warm-ups before the triple jump event.

Westcott has been rehabbing at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab and has progressed to the point of being able to sit in a wheelchair.

“He was warming up in the triple jump, just doing run throughs, and as he was going through the sand, he tripped either over his own feet or over the sand, and kind of stumbled, and was kind of running as he was stumbling, and just fell head first into the wall,” said Rock Falls track coach Eric Bontz.

“You go from being a normal, happy family with, everybody talking about future plans and graduation, prom — he just got accepted to study to be a vet tech after high school — and then seeing him in a wheelchair, not able to do a lot of the things that he used to do,” Westcott’s aunt, Kim Wescott Kilday, told KWQC. “It really hurts.”

Westcott, who underwent 12 hours of surgery immediately following the incident, faces a long recovery.

A GoFundMe has been established to help with medical expenses.

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