Heavy checks and clashes with the gang are actually part of the daily routine at ice hockey games. For the German ice hockey professional Mike Glemser, such a collision now has serious consequences: He is paralyzed from the neck down.
Glemser used to play in the German U20 national team, in the club he played for the Starbulls Rosenheim in the ice hockey league. The bad incident happened there during a game against SC Riessersee: In the ninth minute, Glemser first crashed into an opponent and then head first into the gang. What in most cases ends lightly, Glemser this time required several minutes of treatment while still on the ice.
The full extent of the accident only became clear in the hospital: two vertebrae in the cervical spine were broken, Glemser had to undergo multiple operations and was in an artificial coma for ten days.
Despite the doctors’ efforts, Glemser is now paralyzed from the neck down, as his father Kenneth Glemser told Bayerischer Rundfunk: “In the upper area, only the biceps stand is now, means no hands, no wrists, nothing works in the leg area, everything is completely paralyzed .” The reason for this is that the accident also severely damaged the spinal cord.
In addition to the motor function, the consequences of the accident are even potentially life-threatening because, according to Starbulls Rosenheim, the ability of the diaphragm to breathe is also affected by the paralysis, so Glemser still has to be artificially ventilated. A first goal is now that Glemser can move around in a wheelchair again.
He receives support from his association and his family: together they launched a fundraising campaign that has already reached its goal of 250,000 euros in the first 24 hours. It now stands at more than 415,000 euros.
Sources: “World”, “Image”
