Jack Kavanagh is a keen water sports participant, as the picture on his Facebook support site shows.

Dunshaughlin pharmacist Peter Kavanagh and his wife, El Marie, are waiting anxiously this week by their son Jack's bedside in a Portuguese hospital, after he was involved in a swimming accident on a beach in Albufeira.

The Dunshaughlin and Ratoath communities have been rallying around the Kavanagh family since the 19-year-old Trinity College pharmacy student sustained a fracture to a vertebrae in his neck last Friday.

He was on a sunshine holiday with a group of friends on the beach in the popular Algarve resort of Albufeira, when he dived into water on a beach but hit his head of the sand, and sustained a serious injury to his neck.

To read the full story see this week's Meath Chronicle.

For updates check

https://www.facebook.com/SupportForJackKavanagh