Almost immediately, when I was flipped over I told my dad ‘I’ve broken my neck’. I couldn’t feel anything and I couldn’t move.”

Sebastian Pena, known to his friends as Seb, was on holiday visiting family in Venezuela last December when his life changed forever.

While teaching his younger cousins how to dive into the sea Seb hit his head on the seabed, causing permanent damage to his spinal cord and leaving him tetraplegic. This means he is now paralysed from the neck downwards.

The 21-year-old from Oxford was brought back to the UK and has spent the past 11 months in hospital recovering from his injuries, and his family are now trying to raise the funds needed to bring him home

“The main part of my life was going to medical school. I loved playing sports like volleyball and rugby and on top of that I did enjoy music and also tutoring,” Seb says of his life prior to the accident.

The medical student had travelled to South America alongside his family.

“One day, I was in the sea with my family and one of my younger cousins wanted me to show them how to dive,” he says.

“As an example, I went first and in the process there was a shallow bit of sea and I hit that.

“That caused me to knock my head – I thought it was just an initial knock but it knocked my front teeth out and I sort of froze.

“After that I couldn’t really move – I tried to turn over in the sea but I couldn’t really move so I was face down, and I was lucky that my dad was nearby and he was able to flip me over and helped to carry me.”