Meet the League of Legends gamer who overcame a broken neck to become one of the best players in Europe

A young gamer whose neck was broken in a tragic accident has turned himself into one of the best League of Legends players in Europe. 

Conrad Hildebrand may not be able to move his fingers, but by using a trackpad and low-profile keyboard, he has mastered the wildly popular online game. 

He tells Totally Game: “What I like about League of Legends is that I can control where my character is moving with just one click. There’s a lot less input but it still has the action and the combat of any other game.

“I’m currently ranked in the top 15 percent of players in Europe on my server but the best I have ever been is in the top 8 percent.

“I’m trying to actually go beyond that. My goal in the game is to hit the Diamond tier of players, which would be around the top 1 percent of the players on my server.”

Hildebrand is no stranger to pushing himself to the top, as the Stockholm native was a Swedish, Estonian, and Baltic champion as a swimmer before his accident.

This champion's spirit has helped him through the tough times after the injury he suffered, and he tells Totally Game: "I wanted to show everyone how I was gaming and that it’s still possible to play these games with a disability on a pretty good level."

Totally Game is a weekly show that focuses on the stories of players around the world, from the inspiring tales of people who have overcome difficulties using games to the amazing feats of record breakers. You can catch new episodes every Wednesday on Snapchat, YouTube, TikTok, and right here on GamesRadar. 

Catch up with the series so far by watching episode six here. 

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Ben Tyrer
Contributor

Ben Tyrer is a freelance games journalist with over ten years experience of writing about games. After graduating from Bournemouth University with a degree in multimedia journalism he's worked for Official PlayStation Magazine as a staff writer and games editor, as well as GamesRadar+ (hey, that's this website!) as a news editor. He's also contributed to Official Xbox Magazine, Edge, PC Gamer, GamesMaster, PC Games N, and more. His game of the year - no matter the year - is Rocket League.