Théodore Côté had a bright future ahead of him when he dove into a pool the night before Canada Day.

The 17-year-old was fooling around with friends at the start of a summer break before starting his college football career with the Cégep de l'Outaouais Griffons at the largest public college in the Outaouais region. But he never emerged from the water on his own, having fractured two vertebrae in his neck and compressed his spinal cord.

Côté was left tetraplegic, with limited function and sensation in his limbs, and rushed to Sacré-Coeur Hospital in Montreal for emergency surgery.

More than two weeks later he remains at a Montreal rehabilitation centre, with his mother unable to transfer him closer to home in Gatineau, Que., because the nearest suitable hospital is in Ottawa, part of th

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