My wife's uncle in Ireland, a complete daft bastard, had the garage door drop onto his head. He felt a bit off, so went for a 30 minute swim in the sea to see if the would loosen him up a bit. Needless to say it didn't. His wife made him go to the doctors, who sent him straight to A&E, where the confirmed he'd broken his neck.
So, he had this contraption strapped round his chest with bars going up which were then screwed against his head to hold his neck in position. He was supposed to go in an ambulance once a fortnight to Dublin, at least a 3 hour journey each way, where they checked him out and tightened the bolts into his head. He got sick of this after the second time, so when the consultant wasn't looking, he pocketed the little torque wrench that he used, and from then on just gave his bolts a tighten himself and refused further treatment.
Amazingly he's now still perfectly fine.
