Bad News! Broken back. If he is lucky enough to get it to heal, it will likely bother him his whole life. My husband has broken his back two different times and the chronic pain his lives with is tremendous.
When I was first learning to ride, one time going down the road in front of our quarters on Fort Myer (strict 25mph zone), I felt I was going too fast so I pulled in the clutch, then I knew I needed to let go of the clutch to get back under power, but I was scared then and was trying to go faster so kept turning the throttle to get up to speed, but was afraid to release the clutch - this all took seconds but in my mind it was several minutes of telling myself what I had to do. Well I finally did release the clutch - I think it is really called popping it as I did not let it go slowly, just let it go, my revs were way up, my throttle turned up - way up, and that front wheel came up off the ground and we went down the road about 10 - 15 feet on my rear tire. Of course it came back down and nothing happened to me. I just know that it is easy when trying to show off like the lads probably were, it is way too easy to give too much gas to the bike and not let the clutch go appropriately and get that front wheel off the ground. And I did this on an 800 Intruder, not a speed bike.
Sorry to hear this story.