Footballing teenager Alex Campbell, whose neck was broken in a car crash, has undergone a long-awaited operation to get him back on the road to recovery.

And while he still faces many hard months of intensive rehabilitation and treatment, his family believe it is a major step forward.

He now finds it possible to move his neck about two inches each way. The vital operation to stabilise his neck by surgeons at Stanmore Hospital in Middlesex involved inserting metal pins in either side of the neck and the grafting of bone from his lower back.

Alex's mother Monica, of Greenway, Frinton, who has been visiting him almost daily, said the 18-year-old still had feeling in his legs but could not move them. He can move his arms and wrists but not his fingers as yet.

Alex, a promising footballer and member of Frinton and Walton Youth FC, was involved in a crash on his way home from a victorious match after the car he was in aquaplaned on the wet surface on January 26.

Published Monday, March 11, 2002