THE family of a teenager left paralysed after diving into a shallow swimming pool a year ago have appealed for donations as he prepares to leave hospital.

Tristan Green, 19, has been at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Buckinghamshire, after the horrific accident last July left him unable to move from the chest down.

Now he has secured a two-bedroom ground-floor flat in Highwoods, Colchester, bringing him closer to his family at long last. He will receive round-the-clock care.

Tristan is set to move into the flat on September 14, four days after his release from hospital.

But the costs to Tristan’s family to visit him in hospital every weekend have taken their toll and an appeal has been launched for donated items to furnish the flat.

Mum Dawn, 43, of Prettygate, Colchester, said: “Tristan has really been given a boost now, knowing he is going to have his own place. We need everything apart from a sofa.

“We haven’t got a lot of money left now – it costs us £100 a week to see him.”

Dawn, husband James, 38, and their youngest son Harvey, three, visit Tristan every weekend, staying a night in a Premier Inn close to the hospital.

At first Tristan was in Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, before he was transferred to Stoke Mandeville for rehabilitation and physiotherapy last October.

His prognosis still remains unclear.

Dawn said: “He has not really got anymovement back. He has got some feeling in his feet.

“They still class it as early days, you cannot put a timescale on it.”

But she said her Colchester United supporter son, who has a season ticket for this year, remains in good spirits.

Dawn said: “I don’t know how he is doing it. He hardly has any down days and is learning to get on with it now.”

Tristan will be looked after for 24 hours a day by carers who will work in shifts and live with him at his flat.

He still needs help to wash and dress himself and with eating and drinking due to his loss of grip.

The accident happened at a friend’s house and left Tristan’s neck broken in two places and he had a bruised spinal chord.

All Tristan recalls is floating to the surface of the water and being in the helicopter on his way to hospital.

Dawn said: “When he comes out, one of the first things he wants to do is find the people who airlifted him.”

! If you can donate items of furniture or white or electrical items, email jayndawn@ntlworld.com or send a message on the Facebook page: Tristan’s Road to Recovery.