Drowning Man

“In a split second the lip of the wave heaved and collapsed as it doubled in size and dropped on my shoulders - the sheer force drove my head into the sand. The impact was bone crunching, as the weight of literally tons of water collapsed on me, knocking me unconscious. Opening my eyes, all I could see was sand, all around me, churned up by the swell. It was hard to see, but a few rays of sunlight were breaking through the sand-filled water. Blood was swirling in front of my face and I still couldn’t comprehend the situation, everything seemed so jaded…”

Drowning Man is a true account of one man’s fight for life and battle for survival against all odds; a fight against the power and strength of death itself.

It all happened one beautiful afternoon on the Gold Coast. David was doing what he had done many times before. But this time a super wave caught him off guard. He ended up being transported by ambulance to the spinal unit of the Princess Alexandra Hospital. The first diagnosis was that there was no break in the spinal cord. They did not know why David was not able to walk.

But a little over an hour later he was told that the first diagnosis had been wrong. They had been too hasty. There was instead severe spinal contusion, and he would never be able to walk again. He was 31 years old.

Then one day a nurse, who had come to change the bed sheets, asked him to move his legs. “Then I watched, as both legs suddenly moved, it was not more than a couple of millimetres but they moved all the same. I was absolutely amazed.”

He tried again, pushed his toes in and out, lifted his legs up and down. David believed that God had answered his prayers.

David had been a Christian for seven years when the accident happened. He continued to pray and believe that somehow God was in this event with him – even though he sometimes doubted.

The surgeon told him: “In all the years I have been in this hospital, I have never seen or heard of anyone coming out of such an accident with that amount of damage and be able to walk. If you can walk this afternoon we will let you out of hospital within a few days.”

David did walk but with a lot of difficulty. He still had to wear a neck brace, and somehow he had to get up a flight of stairs to reach his unit.

He continued to rehabilitate himself with a lot of effort and a lot of pain.  He finally got to the point where he could ride a bike again, and swim and run. Through it all he never lost his faith in God.

He says: “God has never let me down.”