FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – What started as a fun Fourth of July holiday on the water ended when Daniel Eisenberg badly injured his spinal cord.
He was left paralyzed from the chest down and now he’s fighting to regain his mobility.
“If God put me in this situation, he can definitely, certainly get me out of it,” Eisenberg said.
Eisenberg is, in a lot of ways, an average 23-year-old.
“I love hanging out with my friends, my family, my fiancé, I love being outdoors, I love going to the beach,” he said.
Originally from New Jersey, Eisenberg moved to Florida a few years ago and settled in Fort Lauderdale soon after that.
Like many Floridians, he loves going out on boats with friends, so on the Fourth of July, they went out to the Fort Lauderdale sandbar around 3 p.m.
“I actually jumped off the boat around that time and the water was shallow but not that shallow, it was probably around five feet deep, somewhere around there,” he said.
The group kept enjoying themselves for a few more hours, and Eisenberg decided to jump in one more time, but now, the water was only about three feet deep.
“Wasn’t expecting the tide change and wasn’t expecting it to be that shallow and after that jump I made impact with the sandbar,” he said.
He blacked out immediately, and first responders rushed him to the hospital for emergency spinal surgery.
It turns out Eisenberg had broken four vertebrae and herniated two of them as well, leaving him without feeling from the chest down.
Now he’s confined to wheelchairs and needs help doing even simple tasks, but neither Eisenberg nor his doctors are giving up hope that he can make some kind of recovery.
“It’s an injury that takes time to recover,” said Dr. Joanne Delgado-Lebron with Memorial Healthcare System. “So his near future is going to look like a lot of occupational therapy to maximize neurological recovery and maximize functional improvement.”
Said Eisenberg: “I see so much support and I see how much people want to see me get better, and so I just constantly think about them and making them proud.”
His doctors say there is a 20-30% chance he regains the ability to walk. Eisenberg’s fiancé created a GoFundMe to help with his care, and that can be found by clicking here.