I'm obviously no doctor, but given the type of injury he had and location, I would guess he likely has a bulging or ruptured disc in the neck that is pressing on a nerve. Given that two sets of doctors missed it, I would think it is probably a small bulge that is hard to see. That would likely mean a discectomy or laminectomy which do require small incisions, but neither is what I would call a major surgery. Some can even be done as outpatient surgery. Obviously it's never great to have surgery on the neck but if it's a bulging or even blown disc it's something that is done quite often these days and they have developed less invasive methods that they can sometime use. It all depends on the severity of the bulge or rupture.