An Australian man has backflipped himself to death.
After becoming overexcited, the 18-year-old popped a backflip. He was celebrating his new apartment with his girlfriend and starting a new life. The two of them were moving in with his best friend. After months of saving and working his fingers to the bone, he felt confident enough to start a life with their own place.
Sonny Blundell, 18, had only just moved to the Gold Coast with his friend and girlfriend. He had been putting in the hours working on concrete. “Moving to Queensland only a month ago, which was his greatest accomplishment, he worked the hardest, concreting and making himself known,” his sister, Cromack-Hay, said.
To celebrate his new move, he FaceTimed his sister from his new home. Full of excitement, the 18-year-old Australian threw a backflip in the apartment, but misjudged it and hit his head. Feeling the effects of a nasty slip, he took himself to bed.
When concussed, one of the most important things is to stay awake. But, being only 18 years old, the young man didn’t know.
Backflip Concussion Quickly Turns Fatal
Sonny didn’t realise it, but the backflip was going to be his last. He had damaged his brain and, by taking himself to bed, had missed a lot of the early warning signs. “[He] woke up, went to the toilet, vomited, and then passed out. That’s when his best friend found him unresponsive in the morning,” his distraught sister told The Daily Telegraph.
The young man, now unresponsive from the damage his backflip had done to his brain, was rushed to the Queensland Hospital Intensive Care Unit. Here, he suffered multiple strokes brought on by the brain bleed he had suffered.
The family knew that the injury was serious, and it was going to be a struggle even if he didn’t die from the injury. “The first 24 hours were the most critical … we nearly lost him after having multiple strokes and another bleed, which led to him needing a drain in his brain,” his sister recalled. “There is major uncertainty that Sonny will or will not pull through. He’s working his hardest as there could be recovery and rehabilitation.”
But the damage from the backflip was too much for the 18-year-old Australian to endure, and he died in the hospital.