Man breaks neck diving into shallow water
A man dives into the water during the annual diving contest at Songdo Beach in Busan last year. Yonhap
By Jung Min-ho
A man broke his neck when diving into shallow water during a sports festival in Busan on Saturday.
According to the Busan Seo-gu Office Monday, the man, 48, whose identity is being withheld, suffered a broken neck when his head hit the seabed during a diving competition at Songdo Beach at 2:20 p.m.
He was immediately taken to a nearby hospital, where he is recovering after a three-hour operation.
The depth of the diving spot is about 5 five meters at full tide. But when he jumped into the water, the tide had begun to ebb. At the time of the accident, the water was only about 3.2 meters deep, a Busan Seo-gu official said.
Organizers immediately canceled the annual event, which had been planned to end the next day.
The man, who is known to have four years of amateur diving experience, belongs to a diving club at Goyang, Gyeonggi Province.