Total Submission’s star kickboxer Dillon Opperman will have to sit out the upcoming club’s tournament after he sustained a head and shoulder injury.
The 12-year-old was on holiday in Hekpoort when he fell five metres high from a tree.
“We were playing hide and seek and I wanted a nice place to hide and the tree was the best option at the time and I was higher than my home’s roof. When the game was done, I was climbing down when one of the branches snapped and I fell, hitting my head on the ground,” said Dillon.
After falling, Dillon did not realise the severity of his injury until he noticed he could not move his left hand.
At this point he ran home to alert his mother of what had happened.
“I felt fine but I was panicking because my hand wasn’t working. I ran home and jumped over the gate. I started to feel dizzy but I still didn’t know that I’d hurt my head. When my mother noticed my injuries, she rushed me to Netcare Krugersdorp Private Hospital. Along the way, the accelerator pedal snapped and we had to stop and fix it,” he said.
At the hospital, doctors found that part of his right skull where the impact had occurred was caved in.
Dillon had to spend two nights in Intensive Care Unit and had to undergo surgery to rectify his skull.
“What’s funny is that just a few minutes before the incident occurred, I told my six-year-old brother that he was not allowed to climb the tree. Guess I showed him. I’m greatful to my family and God for being there for me because I could have died. The roots of the tree had big rocks around it and my head could have hit any one of them,” he said.
Dillon will return to school at the end of the month but doctors have advised him to refrain from playing sports for the rest of the year.
“I’m happy that I’m missing training but now that I think I’ll only be able to compete next year I become sad at the thought. I will just put more effort in my school work because it’s high school next year,” he said.
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