My story
My name is Menno Streefland. I was born on June 2, 1995, in Nijmegen. After studying Business Administration, Management, Economics, and Law, I worked as a recruiter, account manager, and eventually as a business developer. I am an avid winter sports enthusiast, just like you.
The accident
In the second weekend of January 2023, I went skiing with some colleagues on the Austrian slopes of the Zillertal Arena. On a sunny Saturday morning, I had a hard fall during a descent. I hit an icy patch, lost my balance, and flew off the side of the slope. I fell about 10 meters and landed on a hard surface. Once in the snow, I realized I could no longer move my lower body. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t. Now panicking, I called my friends, parents, and girlfriend, asking if a helicopter could please come…
After a flight of less than 18 minutes with the helicopter, I arrived at the hospital in Innsbruck. I was operated immediately. I had a shattered vertebra, which was replaced during the operation with a spinal fusion (a type of bridge).
The doctor told my family that there was no chance of recovery: my lower body would remain paralyzed for the rest of my life. But when I woke up the next morning from the anesthesia, I miraculously felt some sensation in my legs! The spinal cord injury turned out to be incomplete, meaning that recovery was indeed possible! But the question then, and remains, is: how far will my recovery go?
Rehabilitation
In total, I spent two weeks in the hospital in Innsbruck. Then I was transferred to the Radboud UMC in Nijmegen. I stayed there for another two weeks until a bed became available for me at De Hoogstraat, a rehabilitation clinic in Utrecht.
Ultimately, I underwent an intensive and in-house rehabilitation process until the end of May, which was about three and a half months. Physiotherapy, occupational therapy, swimming lessons, social work, driving lessons, cooking classes… They even taught me how to dress myself independently!
Six weeks after the accident, movement returned in my left big toe. That that gave me a tremendous amount of motivation. To this day, I train intensively—and I am making progress. Want to follow my recovery process? You can do so on my Instagram account @mennostreefland.
My mission
I am able to train every day for my recovery, and I do so. I realize that this is an immense privilege. In the Netherlands, healthcare is very well organized! By now, I have regained several functions in my lower body.
But there are plenty of people for whom that is not the case. And, of course, I want to fully recover as well.
To make this possible, but also to prevent more people from going through what I experienced, I started SPINES. I develop and sell back protectors for intensive sports such as skiing and snowboarding, but also for horse riding and cycling. Wearing a helmet is already a quite common practice, but wearing a back protector is not yet. I hope to change that by raising more awareness. From every purchase, money is donated to spinal cord injury research. Because as of today, there is still no medication or solution.
At SPINES, we want to be as transparent as possible about pricing.
The price of € 74.99 for the back protector is broken down as follows:
- Purchase costs: € 30.00
- VAT: € 12.60
- Operational costs: € 17.39
- = Total: € 59.99
- Donation: € 15.00
Our mission is to make sure everyone is skiing and snowboarding as safe as possible. Also, we want to donate €150,000 to spinal cord injury research!
- Will you ever fully recover?
That’s hard to say. I train very hard. My dream is for a medication to be found for spinal cord injuries.
- What about the € 15 donation?
With SPINES, I want to contribute to spinal cord injury research. I want to help eliminate spinal cord injuries from the world.
- Your back protector is much cheaper than others; how is that?
The back protectors from SPINES have the same safety certifications as more expensive variants. So why are we cheaper?
- Spines does not have physical stores.
- As a brand, we incur no costs.
- We want everyone to wear a back protector, so we consciously keep the price as low as possible.
At SPINES, we want to be as transparent as possible about pricing.
The price of € 74.99 for the back protector is broken down as follows:
- Purchase costs: € 30.00
- VAT: € 12.60
- Operational costs: € 17.39
- = Total: € 59.99
- Donation: € 15.00
- Why a pre-order?
- At SPINES, we want to prevent overproduction.
- Because we are a new company, we cannot yet have a huge stock or make advance payments.
Travelling to China
The back protectors are produced in China. Together with my best friend Stijn, I went on a purchasing trip. At SPINES, we not only find it important to make back protectors that are as good and safe as possible, but we also value good working conditions in the factory and ensuring that we pay them a fair price. I cannot help athletes if other people suffer as a result.
During this trip, we walked (and rolled) around the Chinese city of Guangzhou. There, we met a Chinese man who was also in a wheelchair. He wanted to take a photo with me, a fellow wheelchair user. He told me that he fell from the roof while renovating his home for his family. He broke the same vertebra in his back as I did, but unlike me, he was operated only a few days later. His lower body has been completely paralyzed to this day and will not recover. In that sense, I was “lucky”—because I was operated immediately, my nerves were compressed for a shorter time. As a result, recovery is possible.
I hope that one day a medication will be found for spinal cord injuries so that I can help that Chinese man.
