Lived For Months

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1058, 23 August 1930, Page 18

Lived For Months

With Neck Fractured Sydney Man's Plucky Fight

KONDERFUL fortitude : through months of agon j ising suffering with a I fractured neck —display ing indomitable coinage always smiling through—dreaded paralysis—and then death. Frank Greenlees, journalist, footballer, surfer, following an intricate operation, recently died *.n Sydney. East December Greenlees dived into shallow water in a private baths at Potts Point and crashed Jiead first on to the concrete bottom of the pool. Unconscious, he was rushed to St. Vincent’s Hospital. It was seen at once that his neck was badly broken, and his life was despaired of. Then Frank Greenlees commenced to give medical science its first big surprise. While friends waited in dreaded suspense the patient gradually grew better. Rather, he refused to die Wracked with pain, paralysed m practically every limb, the young man, when seized with a paroxysm of torture, just smiled through with Spartan pluck. “I'll Get Better” For months he lay with his neck in

a plaster cast, arid all the time kept up liis wonderful spirits. “I’ve made up my mind to get better,” he repeatedly toid his friends, and finally one day the “hopeless case’’ walked out of the hospital. Still wearing a steel supporting jacket he went about his every-day life once again. He went up to Katoomba to his parents’ home, and after a good holiday there, came back to Sydney, and, against the advice of his friends, recommenced his newspaper duties. And then, a few weeks ago, dreaded paralysis at last compelled this indomitable spirit to surrender. Back to Hospital Back he went to St. Vincent’s Hospital, and with all his lower limbs paralysed. There was one chance, that of freeing the nerve centres of the spine from outside pressure A lam inectomy operation, which means tho cutting of an arch which forms the canal for the spine, was successfully performed. The patient progressed well during the day following the operation, but later symptoms of shock became apparent, and the brave Young man died.