Milton Academy Hockey Player Paralyzed After Serious Injury

MILTON, MA — Milton Academy Mustang and Fitchburg native Jake Thibeault was involved in a hockey-related spinal cord injury over the weekend causing him to become paralyzed.

During a tournament on Saturday, Thibeault had a collision on the ice, causing him to fracture his T7 T8 vertebrae, resulting in paralysis from the waist down and a small brain bleed, according to a fundraiser on The Greg Hill Foundation.

The fundraiser says they will match all donations up to $5,000.

A second fundraiser through GoFundMe has already raised up to $230,000 as of Tuesday.

"My family is amazing and this "setback" will not define us or change who Jake is," says Jake's father Michael in a Facebook post. "Jake is tough, is overflowing with grit and is determined to walk again. But he is scared beyond belief. Losing hockey and his dream of playing collegiately, which we now know for certain was happening, is soul crushing for him."

The GoFundMe post calls the 18-year-old one of the most dedicated, hard-working student-athletes. The post claims that he embodies the Milton Mustang's motto, "Dare to be true," always being the first to hold the door and the last to order his meal.

"How bad did he want to chase his dream? How about putting 60,000 miles on his car driving to school and hockey 7 days a week for 10 months? Getting up at 4:00am twice a week for a year to drive to skating lesson then heading off to school?" His father wrote in the post.

This accident comes just 8 months after Bishop Feehan's AJ Quetta suffered a serious spinal cord injury on the ice, leaving him partially paralyzed during a January hockey game.

Jake's father knows this will be a devastating loss for his son, but holds hope that he will get back on the ice.

"He may have missed achieving his dream by the thinnest of slivers but in our eyes he made it," his father wrote on Facebook. "Now it's time for him to create new dreams to chase!!!"

The GoFundMe link can be found here, and the Greg Hill Foundation fundraiser can be found here.