With Ontario doctors reporting a spike in diving-related spinal injuries, a young man who broke his neck after he jumped into shallow water is warning others against making the same decision he did.

Blair Williams is confined to a wheelchair after breaking his neck in a diving accident in July 2006.

Williams, 34, had a few drinks at a bar with friends before the party moved to a nearby waterfront home. He decided to go for a swim but when he dove in to the water, he could hear his neck crack.

"I thought to myself ‘Wow, that's really weird, what happened there?'" Williams told CTV News.

"Then I tried to move my arms and I couldn't move my arms, and that's when it hit me that I had broken my neck and I was paralyzed."

Williams went on: "I am leading my life with regrets every day. There's not a day that doesn't go by that at least at one point I sit there and just shake my head (and ask), ‘Why did I do that?'"

Williams spent more than two months in intensive care, where a ventilator helped him breathe and he fought off numerous bouts of pneumonia.

He was eventually transferred to a Toronto rehabilitation facility, where he spent 10 months learning how to do basic tasks such as brushing his teeth, eating and dressing himself.

"My decision to not walk into the lake that night was my decision to never walk again for the rest of my life," Williams said. "And that is a regret that I'm going to have to live with for the rest of my life."

Earlier this week, doctors at Toronto's St. Michael's Hospital reported a sharp increase in patients who have suffered severe injuries after diving into shallow water.

In any given year, the hospital's trauma centre will treat one patient who has suffered a spinal-cord injury in a diving-related accident. This year, doctors have treated seven such patients.

Dr. Michael Cusimano said the majority of diving-related incidents "are preventable," and suggests the spike is likely related to the hot, sunny summer in Ontario that has people looking for ways to cool off.

But Cusimano also suggested that young patients feel invincible and don't know the potential risks of diving into unknown waters.

"Young men out to have a good time, out drinking, having a good time," Cusimano told CTV News. "They don't know the water."

A month ago, Bradon Lamoureaux was playing a game in a Huntsville, Ont. lake with one of his friends when he awkwardly hit the bottom.

The 23-year-old was bundled into an air ambulance and transported to St. Michael's Hospital. The incident has left him paralyzed.

"Right now he has nothing," Bradon's father, Bunny Lamoureaux, told CTV News. "He can't move, he can only breathe on a ventilator right now. It's very hard for all of us."

Lamoureaux's parents hope their son's story serves as a warning for others swimming and diving in unknown waters.

Blair Williams also tells his story to prevent future accidents, speaking to students about the dangers of diving without first checking the water's depth.

"You can't stop kids from playing in the lake, it's just not going to happen," Bradon's mother, Lynne Lamoureaux, told CTV. "You just have to be a little more aware of what can happen and how easily it can happen."

With a report from CTV's medical specialist Avis Favaro and producer Elizabeth St. Philip