Scaffolder thought he just had bad back and sciatica - days later he was in a wheelchair

17.02.2022 - 21:49 / manchestereveningnews.co.uk

When schoolboy Oscar was being picked on for growing his hair long, it was the fact he was doing it for charity that kept him going over the last two years.

He always knew he would donate his locks to the Little Princess Trust, to make wigs for young cancer patients, but he was unsure who to donate his fundraising money to.

But now the 10-year-old has more reason than ever to carry on with his good deed after his dad Chris was struck down suddenly by a rare spinal syndrome that has put him in a wheelchair.

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The 34-year-old had suffered with a bad back and sciatica, but it wasn't causing him any major issues and he was in fact training for his first full marathon in Edinburgh this May.

But when he lifted a heavy box while out shopping one weekend last November, he felt it had 'totally gone'.

Struggling with the pain over the next few days, he visited his GP and was told if it got worse or he felt any numbness, he should go to Accident and Emergency.

By Tuesday he was at A&E and kept in overnight and after the results of an MRI scan, he was blue-lighted to Salford Royal as an emergency.

Within hours he was undergoing surgery to release the pressure on the nerves in his spinal column that were being compressed.

The symptoms, he later discovered, were due to cauda equina syndrome - a rare and severe type of spinal stenosis where all of the nerves in the lower back suddenly become severely compressed.

Now using crutches to move short distances and a wheelchair for anything further, the dad-of-three, from Horwich, Bolton, is unsure what the future holds.

"It just happened so suddenly," he told the Manchester Evening News. "I was