A TEENAGER who was left paralysed from the chest down after diving into a shallow swimming pool could be home at the end of April.

Tristan Green, who will be 19 on Saturday, has been in hospital since the horrific accident, at a friend’s house in Colchester last July.

Tristan’s neck was broken in two places and he had a bruised spinal cord.

After spending the first few months in Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, in October he was transferred to Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Buckinghamshire.

Tristan’s mum, Dawn, 42, said he had been given a discharge date of April 22, but plenty still needed to be done.

She said: “He has been referred to an occupational therapist and we have contacted the council, but we haven’t heard anything back yet.

“Tristan wants his own place, but he is going to need full-time care.”

Mrs Green, husband James and Tristan’s brother Harvey, two, travel from their home in Prettygate, Colchester, to visit him at StokeMandeville every weekend.

Mrs Green said: “We have been taking him into the town and doing some shopping.

“It is his birthday on Saturday and we have booked a family meal near to the hospital.”

Mrs Green said Tristan’s weight had plummeted, but he was showing signs of improvement.

She said: “He has lost three stone. On his last weigh he was eight stone. He is having to rely on other people giving him hospital meals.”

She added Tristan was able to feel others’ touch on parts of his body and had just started to move his thumb.

She said: “He is whizzing around in the electric wheelchair.”

A Facebook page, Tristan’s Road to Recovery, now has 3,520 likes.