A CHERWELL student who broke his neck and spent a third of the school year out of sixth form achieved four As to get into Manchester University.

Anand Knox, from Summertown, suffered the severe injury while in the sea on holiday with his family in Greece last year.

The straight-A student – who will study chemistry – broke his fourth and fifth vertebrae and was rushed to a hospital in Athens, where he was scanned and fortunately told the breaks were minor.

But once back in the UK he had to undergo an operation to place titanium plates into his neck, which made him struggle to walk and forced him to miss school.

The 18-year-old said: “It was a freak accident. I was in the sea with my little sister and we were playing. Then my head hit the bottom and I broke my neck. I had to wear a neck brace from September to January.

“I came into school for a bit in September, but then I had to have surgery and have pins put into my neck to fix it.

“After that it took a while to recover. It was difficult to walk and it was very painful.”

But Mr Knox worked from home and made a full recovery to return to school and passed his exams in maths, physics, chemistry and English literature with A grades.