On a summer afternoon nine years ago, Mark Raymond Jr dove into Lake Pontchartrain in the US state of Louisiana.<\/p>\n
He had not realised how shallow it was \u2013 and felt his forehead hit the lake bottom. Three weeks later, he woke up from a medically induced coma, unable to use his legs or hands.<\/p>\n
Diving accidents are life-shattering \u2013 but not uncommon. They disproportionately affect young men: up to 97 per cent of diving-induced spinal cord injuries occur in males, and most are aged 15 to 29 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnybody\u2019s life can change in a split second like mine did,\u201d says Raymond, who went on to found the Split Second Foundation in New Orleans and is its chief executive.<\/p>\n
![\"Mark](\"https:\/\/img.i-scmp.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto\/sites\/default\/files\/d8\/images\/canvas\/2025\/11\/20\/66cdcd92-0a96-47c0-8535-f1b759366c0a_855e6802.jpg\" "\\"Mark")
<\/div>He was fortunate that his friends that day performed CPR and saved his life. He was in his mid-twenties at the time. Since then, he has become an energetic campaigner for spinal cord injury and, in particular, the dangers of diving into shallow water.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t paying attention to the tide. What I thought was deeper water was not. [I] dove off the boat and hit my head on the sandy bottom, and I shattered the fifth vertebra in my neck, resulting in paralysis,\u201d he writes on his website.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n