“It Was Just Another Pool Party… Until Everything Changed”

New Year’s Eve 2019 was supposed to be a fun night. Zoe Walton was hanging out at a friend’s place, swimming, laughing, and having a few drinks — pretty standard stuff for someone in their late teens. But in just one moment, everything nearly changed forever.

"We'd been drinking around the pool and had already had a swim that evening. A friend and I decided to walk down to the pool to have another swim, so I jumped into the pool but I went in without my hands first so my neck went in at a bad angle."

Instantly, Zoe knew something wasn’t right. “I could feel it. My neck felt wrong — really wrong. I just kept hearing my mum’s voice in my head, saying, ‘You know your body. If it feels wrong, it probably is.’”

Her friend Nadia was with her and tried to stay calm, brushing it off at first: “I just said it’s fine, let’s float for a bit…” But deep down, they all knew something serious had happened.

Even though they were all a bit tipsy, Zoe insisted they get help. Her friends carried her upstairs and called an ambulance. She hoped it was just a bruised muscle. It wasn’t.

Zoe’s C7 vertebrae had completely shattered – called a burse fracture, with the fragments encroaching on her spinal cord. If it had gone just a little further, it could’ve severed the cord completely, leaving her permanently paralysed.

She spent six days lying flat in hospital, unable to move, waiting for the swelling to go down before surgery. Doctors removed the shattered bone, replaced it with one from her hip, and fused her spine with a metal plate.

Recovery was long — and hard.

“It took a month before I could walk around uni again. I wore a neck brace for three months. There’s still pain now and then… but honestly, it’s the mental side that’s been even harder.”
Zoe admits she ignored the trauma at first, focusing only on her physical recovery. "I really pushed away all of the fear and mental turmoil initially because I just wanted to deal with physically getting better, but later it started coming back and I'm having to actually go through the trauma of the night."

Friend Nadia says the incident was a real eye-opener for everyone in their group. "Nobody had a knowledge about neck injuries, we were all 19 or 20 and very naïve, and also somebody breaking their neck to that extent is something that was not in the realm of possibilities for us - no one had suffered a serious injury before."

Another of Zoe's friends, Tom, says that after seeing what happened to her he'd give some very clear advice to other young people. "Definitely don’t undermine the risks associated with swimming while drinking. Just because you're an excellent swimmer when you're sober doesn't mean you'll be a good swimmer when you're drunk. If you are drinking avoid all pools, the beach etc. and just look after each other.

Now, Zoe is a proud Ambassador for Royal Life Saving WA’s Mermates campaign — sharing her story to help others stay safe and think twice before mixing alcohol and water.