The 66-year-old former Vietnam veteran’s head became unexpectedly stuck on the left side

while playing cards in 1982.

“I was at work and we were playing cards in smoko and a bloke asked me what was wrong with my neck,

” Mr Hitch said." - “They told me to go look in a mirror.“Apparently while I was sitting there playing cards

it just came on and stuck there.”He was diagnosed with a rare neuromuscular condition known

as torticollis which is more common in children. Doctors and physiotherapists were unable to give him

any relief from the debilitating condition.

He said he became known as the “man with the bent neck. People used to stare at me all the time and

when I walked down the street little kids would ask their parents what was wrong with me,” he said.

“I would just try to ignore it.”

“Apparently a lot of people in Townsville have got it but most people hide themselves away and that was one thing I was determined not to do.

“I didn’t want to live my life in a house.”

However after two years of treatment with an exercise physiologist Mr Hitch has gained relief and is able to again move his head from side to side.

“I used to go to the hospital after it happened but nobody has done anything on it or knew anything about it and that is the problem,” he said.

“I was told there was nothing they could do. I had it trouble getting it straight and if I wanted it to be straight, “I had to chew on my collar.

“It gets very painful but you have to put the pain out of your mind.”Within eight months of working twice a week with Lana Watson

at NQ Exercise Physiologists, Mr Hitch started to move again and now, he has gained 27cm to his movement. “It feels really different,” he said.

“But now people still stare at me because they think ‘isn’t that the guy that used to have the bent neck?’”

Mr Hitch thought the condition was brought on after a string of traumatic accidents after most of his body, including his face, was shattered and he was t

he sole survivor in a car crash in Sydney in 1973. Following that, he crushed the top of his vertebrae after he fell out of a window in 1980.

Exercise physiologist Lana Watson said rehabilitating Mr Hitch had been a first.

“I am so proud of him now,” she said.

“I had to figure out what muscles were involved and with the disease they didn’t know what it is so it took a while to figure it out.

“Because it was like that for so long, he had complete muscle wastage from his jaw down through the chest and through the shoulder.”

Mr Hitch has treatment twice a week with Ms Watson.