Australian surfer Dean Amos paddled out to a surf session in January that changed his life forever.
Amos, 58, paddled out at Secret Harbour on Australia Day (aka January 26), when he was “caught out by the swell and slammed head first into a sandbar.”
He remembers hearing the crack when his neck broke, which left him “instantly paralyzed and face down in the water, unable to move,” 7News Australia reported.
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7News captioned the post above:
“A Perth surfer paralysed in an instant – his long fight ahead.”
According to the story, other surfers helped him to shore before first responders arrived.
Amos underwent a “five-hour operation to relocate his neck and to plate the two vertebrae that were dislocated. Then three days later, they went in again to stabilize his neck, attaching rods to the undamaged vertebrae,” according to his GoFundMe.
He has “zero sensation or function below his armpits and very little function in his hands.”
It’ll be around six months before he can leave the hospital.
Amos married his wife, Becky, last April and they were in the middle of renovating their fixer-upper in the south of Perth. The home now “needs a total transformation to accommodate his life in a wheelchair, and it won’t come cheap.”
The cost of plumbing and electrics, widening doorways, an accessible kitchen, bathroom replacement, and hard flooring for wheelchair use has been estimated at well beyond $100,000, 7News reported.
“I mean, we haven’t even thought about hoists, wheelchairs, vehicle modifications. It makes your head spin,” Becky told reporters.
If you can help, click here for Amos’ GoFundMe where his home and medical expenses are outlined.
“It’s overwhelming how lovely these people are,” he said.
According to the fundraiser, Amos was an open-water swimmer, surfer, stand-up paddleboarder, snowboarder, mountain bike and motorbike rider who also loved ballroom dancing and yoga.
He served in the Royal Australian Navy for 10 years and resided in the UK for 30 years before returning to Australia in 2021 to be close to his family.
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