This is the moment a rugby player scored his first points after returning to the sport – nearly two years after he was PARALYSED in a tackle.
Zac France, 23, was told he might never walk again when he was left without feeling in half his body after he injured his spinal cord when he landed on his neck.
But almost two years after the accident he defied doctors by taking to the field for his first game.
Playing with his team Cheltenham Phoenix at the weekend, he scored a goal kick and said it was “as if I’d never left”.
Zac from Leckhampton, Glos, said: “There were a lot of dark days but I was very lucky that my family were there to lean on.
“They would tell me that it would be ok. That was more to do with walking again, not necessarily about playing rugby again.
“But the end game was always playing rugby again.
“I was a bit hesitant making the first couple of tackles but I was happy once I got the ball in my hands and started running.
“It was pretty good just to be back out again on the pitch.”
Zac was playing for Cheltenham Phoenix against Bath Romans in a regional cup final in May 2015 when he was picked up and landed on his neck.
While in the ambulance he lost the feeling in his arm and leg, and was taken to Southmead Hospital, Bristol, before being transferred to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.
He was paralysed down one side of his body and forbidden from moving for more than two months, with only slight movement in his toes and in his arms.
The injury was so bad Zac had to learn to read and write all over again because of the neurological damage it caused.
But he battled and trained to learn to walk again, and took to the field for the first time since his accident at the weekend with the second team, against Stow.
