Last updated at 15:45 13 June 2007

A 14-year-old has baffled medical experts by turning up at hospital with a broken neck - having broken it when he was a toddler.







Alfie Tyson-Brown has been playing rugby, mountain biking and surfing - all of which could have caused fatal damage to his spinal cord.

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The teenager was unaware of the childhood injury until last month when doctors sent him for a routine scan.

He was immediately strapped to a bed and sent for life-saving surgery to put his neck back in place.

Now Alfie is expected to make a full recovery and is looking forward to resuming an active lifestyle.

He is still mystified by the cause of the chronic injury, which only began affecting him in the past year.

The broken bone had moved so far from its natural position that it was compressing his spinal cord and causing him to suffer poor co-ordination and black-outs.

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Alfie said: "Apparently I broke my neck at some point as a toddler, but I had no idea at all. I must have done it while playing because I was always very active.

"I've played rugby, been on rollercoasters and gone surfing - all the things you probably shouldn't do with a broken neck - and yet somehow I'd never realised.

"I never noticed there was anything wrong with me until very recently when I started feeling odd pains in my neck from time to time.

"I also sometimes felt like I didn't have full control over my limbs and occasionally seemed a bit light-headed, but I just got on with life and didn't think about it.

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"About a month ago I was out mountain biking when I came over really strange and completely lost my balance. I ended up falling off my bike in the middle of the road.

"That was when I first realised that there was something seriously wrong and I went to see my GP."

Alfie was referred to Poole Hospital in Dorset where he took several neurological tests and underwent MRI and CT scans.

Doctors spotted that one of his vertebrae was unnaturally out of place and insisted on immediate treatment.

Alfie said: "I was really frightened. I had gone along to the appointment imagining that it would last an hour or two and that I could go back to school in the afternoon.

"But all of a sudden I was being strapped down on a bed so I couldn't move and had a neck brace put on me. They explained that I had broken my neck but I still could not believe it because I felt fine.

"They told me that it must have happened at some point before I was aged about six. I couldn't believe that I had been walking around with a broken neck my entire life."

Alfie was taken to Southampton General Hospital where he was placed, unable to move, in a so-called Halo device with a 10kg weight suspended from his head.

Experts hoped that the treatment would pull the fractured bone back into place, but after 10 days with no improvement, they decided to operate.

Alfie faced the possiblity of a stroke or being permanently paralysed if the operation went wrong.

During a three-and-a-half hour operation experts removed part of Alfie's skull and part of the broken vertebra to ease the pressure on his spinal cord. Then they pinned the broken bone back into the correct position.

Consultant spinal surgeon Evan Davies, who led the unusual operation, said: "In all my years as a spinal surgeon I have never seen anything quite like this.

"It was an unusual operation and incredibly frightening because I was constantly aware that if I got it wrong then he could either suffer a stroke or be permanently paralysed.

"Alfie is a very lucky boy indeed. It's truly remarkable that he broke his neck as a toddler and managed to reach the age of 14 without realising it.

"It is very fortunate that we identified the problem and operated when we did.

"If he had received an injury to his neck the way it was, then it could have caused severe damage to his spinal cord and he may well have died."

Mr Davies said it was clear the fracture had happened many years ago because the edges of the bone were not jagged, having smoothed off over time.

Alfie is now back on his feet and is looking forward to returning home to Wimborne, Dorset.

He hopes that after three months he can get back to his favourite sport of mountain biking and that in a year he will be able to go surfing again.

Alfie has also been cheered up by a steady flow of "get well" cards from friends and family - and even from some of his favourite bands including Stereophonics and Supergrass.

American rockers The Flaming Lips even penned the teenage fan a song wishing him luck for the critical operation.

His relieved father, Chris Brown, 50, a conference manager for Dorset County Council, said: "Alfie is the luckiest boy alive.

"Apparently his spinal cord was doing a U-bend when it should have been straight.

"With all the sport and activities he has done over the years, it is nothing short of a miracle that he is still alive.

"There must have been a star shining over his head for him to have survived this."

His mother Anne Brown, 44, a museum learning officer, said: "It was a terrible feeling when we found out that Alfie had a broken neck.

"As parents, it's the sort of thing that you would have thought that we would have noticed but we were completely oblivious to it.

"Watching him wake up after the operation and seeing that he could wiggle his toes was an incredible feeling because we knew then that he was going to be alright."