Young footballer from Leskovac dies on Lake Ohrid: He jumped off a rock and broke his neck

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Nikola Stevanovic Kole (26) from the village of Donje Krajince near Leskovac, fought to survive for 12 days after a fatal jump from a rock, but he lost that battle. He never woke up from his coma. He died in Skopje, far from his home and family.

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Nikola was a football player. Before the start of the season, he and some friends went on vacation on Lake Ohrid. At one point, he jumped into the lake, hit an underwater rock and broke his neck and the sixth vertebra. He was transferred to Skopje, where he underwent surgery, after which he fell into a coma from which he did not wake up, Jugmedia writes.

He left behind his mother and a sister, the ones he loved the most in this world. The entire football community in the Jablanica District is also mourning his passing.

"He was a good footballer and a very good man. A tall and strong young man. Sadness, great sadness," secretary of GFS Leskovac Milovan Glusac told Jugmedia.

Nikola, who always had a smile on his face, played football from an early age. He went through all the youth teams in FC Dubocica. He mostly played center forward and changed clubs, dreaming to one day join a bigger one, but didn't succeed. He also played for FC Kumarevo from Zlocudovo, Polet from Stajkovac, and Sloga, and after the end of the season, he transferred to OFK Morava Leskovac.

"In the meantime, he also got a job at Nevles because it was not possible to make a living from football, but did not intend to say goodbye to the sport because it was his great love," said a friend.

He adds that his mother struggled to take care of her children and that young Nikola left them at a time when the status of the three-member family improved because everyone had a job and a permanent source of income.

"He had dreams about the future, he had big plans and not all of them had to do with football," the friend said.

(Telegraf.rs)