Cambridge paralysed dancer's hopes for wedding day 'slow dance'

A professional dancer left partially paralysed after diving into a shallow river says he has not given up hope that he will one day dance with his fiancée on their wedding day.

In June, Alex Collins, 21, from Cambridge, jumped head first into the water to retrieve a plastic ring, not realising it was "about two-foot deep". The dive broke the C5 vertebrae in his neck, leaving him unable to perform everyday tasks.

Mr Collins has had months of treatment in the city's Addenbrooke's Hospital and at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire, where machines are being used to stimulate body parts he can no longer move. Funds continue to be raised online towards his care.

His plans to dance around the world with his fiancée Sophie Howse and get married have been put on hold, but he hopes he can recover enough to get back on the dance floor in future.

"Realistically I won't be dancing as full-out as I used to. But even if I can just slow-dance with Sophie at our wedding that would be great," Mr Collins said.