Everybody, Always

school, whom he wanted to both scare and impress, sitting on a dock at
the edge of the water. Karl thought it would take something big to wow
them. He wanted to make an impression with some attention-getting
bravado. So he puffed out his chest and set off running toward the shore.
His plan was to startle the girls by leaping over them and making a big
splash in the water. Girls apparently dig that kind of stuff. His buddies
were egging him on as he ran.
When Karl got to the end of the dock, he leaped like he’d been shot
out of a cannon. As he passed over the heads of the girls, he gave out a
loud battle cry and looked down to see their faces. His head pointed him
downward and his body followed. Karl hit the water like a lawn dart and
made a big splash. His buddies ran up to the girls as they giggled,
offering them towels. The plan had worked perfectly. The girls looked
over the edge of the dock into the murky water, anticipating Karl would
come bursting out.
As usual, Karl acted like a submarine just a foot under the surface of
the water. He was pulling the trick he’d perfected over the years by lying
still. As one minute passed, the girls’ giggles faded into concern.
“Shouldn’t we do something?”
Soon, concern turned into panic. This wasn’t funny any longer. Karl
was still motionless below the surface. Even his buddies thought Karl was
taking his stunt a little too far. They jumped feet first into the murky
lake, and to their surprise the water barely covered their knees. The water
Karl had jumped into headfirst was only three feet deep.
One of his buddies grabbed Karl by the ankles while another grabbed
him by the shoulders. As they lifted Karl onto the dock, his neck flopped
back like a rag doll. Fortunately, a paramedic lived across the street, and
a friend who saw the commotion called for an ambulance. Karl was
whisked away to the hospital.
Spinal cords are tricky things. They’re made up of a bundle of nerves
that control most of our bodies. Our spinal cords control our sense of
touch, how our arms and legs move, how our lungs work, and much more.