Seán’s looking straight ahead after spinal surgery

At one stage, the curve in Seán Bosonnet’s spine was so acute that he would slide off a chair on to the floor when he tried to sit down.

Born with hemiplegic cerebral palsy — where one side of the body is weaker — he developed scoliosis in his teens. At age 15, he was diagnosed with a 48% curvature of the spine. The curve was at 90% — a right angle — by the time he had surgery, after spending more than a year on a waiting list.

The wait could have gone on indefinitely had Straight Ahead not stepped in, a charity set up in 2011 to cater for children in need of time-critical orthopaedic surgery.