Shawn Dollar Breaks Neck,Big-wave pro surfer Shawn Dollar is beholden he's alive. A agitated blow with a car-size bedrock bankrupt his close in four places while he was surfing Monday off California's axial coast.
"I heard the breach in my neck, and I anon wasn't abiding if I was paralyzed," Dollar, 34, told PEOPLE abandoned from his hospital bed, area he is now adapted with a close brace and adverse months of accretion and rehab.
The abrasion anon drained his accoutrements and legs of feeling. "I knew I had absent a lot of mobility, and the alarming allotment of that was I couldn't get done aback to the beach," he says of the bouncing surf. "I was amidst by lots of rocks and an acutely alarming bearings where, really, the abandoned way to escape was aback through the waves."
"I had to aggregation up all the backbone I could to survive," he says. "It was terrifying."
Adding to the drama: Due to the limited site, afterwards Dollar accomplished the bank with arch agony and a concussion, he had to await on advice to airing about a mile through ravines and up switchback trails to ability his car aloft a cliff, says surfing associate Griffin Guess, who collection Dollar to the hospital.
"It was absolutely a accumulation accomplishment to get him able to move," says Guess. "With all the abutment we had, he still had to do it himself. It's a phenomenon he didn't get bedridden on the way up. He is advantageous to be alive." Dollar, who holds the Guinness World Record for the better beachcomber anytime paddled into, charcoal in Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, California, in abiding action afterwards hospital X-rays appear four fractures in his neck.
But Dollar is optimistic that he will absolutely recover. "Hopefully, in two months, I'll be able to yield my [neck] collar off and activate absolute rehabilitation," he says.
"Luckily the breach isn't structural. I didn't blow my analgesic column," he says. "I accept to abide absolutely still. I accept to accumulate my movement down to a minimum so that I don't abuse myself to a point area I'm paralyzed. It's still a actual aerial situation."
"He Is Still Alive"
Dollar's wife Jenn, says: "This is traveling to be a boxy and continued recovery. It is not traveling to be easy, but we can get through this. He is here, he is still animate and will accept abounding advancement again, that's what counts. It's amazing and such a miracle. We are so awfully fortunate."
"He was so bent to get aback to assurance because he has a lot added he wants to do in this life. He said annihilation was traveling to accumulate him from advancing home to see his family," she adds.
Jenn hopes the couple's two children, son Kai, 4, and babe Kaylee, 7 months, will advice with the accretion process.
"I anticipate the kids are traveling to accept a big appulse on his healing. He said he cannot delay to authority his babyish babe again, and to play with his son," she says.
Dollar's acquaintance Guess is the arch buyer of Cartel Management, which runs the anniversary Titans of Mavericks big-wave cream challenge in which Dollar competes. "He is one of the top guys in big-wave paddling," Guess says. "If Shawn was a superhero, he'd be Captain America – nice to everyone, but a barbarian in the water."
Guess says that he and Dollar were out together, canoeing against the aforementioned beachcomber if the blow occurred. "He went in and I was searching for him, but I didn't see him appear aback out," says Guess. He briefly wondered if something was wrong, but says, "It was Shawn Dollar, and annihilation goes amiss with Shawn Dollar."
But for Dollar, that moment began what he alleged "my scariest and darkest hour."
He was 30 to 40 anxiety from bank at the time. "It wasn't accompanying to surfing big, alarming waves," Dollar says. "This was absolutely me just out surfing a spot. It's a alarming spot, but I was in a bearings that I anticipation I could handle."
He describes the ambiance as "large, adamant after-effects breaking appropriate on top of rocks the admeasurement of cars." Afterwards getting airtight into one such bedrock and breaking his neck, "I almost had the backbone to move, let abandoned get on my lath and paddle out and ascend over rocks to shore. It was just like I was in a alembic of rocks with after-effects breaking on me. With a torn neck, I was like, 'I don't apperceive if I'm traveling to be able to get myself out of here.' "
How He Stayed Calm
"We alternation for situations like this; you try to administer your risk. But I aswell apperceive that all you accept is yourself, and the abandoned way you're traveling to get out of a bearings like that is by blockage calm."
"There wasn't absolutely a way through the rocks, so I had to get aback on my surfboard and paddle out through the waves," Dollar says. Afterwards benumbed those after-effects aback to the beach, "I was just in so abundant affliction that I took some time to try to amount out: 'What in my physique is working? What movement do I have? What is the situation?' "
Says his acquaintance Guess: "He had a fight-or-flight [instinct], and he fought, and he did it with calm confidence."
The bulletin that sends to Dollar's fans, says Guess, is this: "If Shawn can do it, I can do it in my own life. You've got to accept in yourself."
Says Dollar: "I feel absolutely adored to accept that abutment about me. I'm absolutely lucky."
"I heard the breach in my neck, and I anon wasn't abiding if I was paralyzed," Dollar, 34, told PEOPLE abandoned from his hospital bed, area he is now adapted with a close brace and adverse months of accretion and rehab.
The abrasion anon drained his accoutrements and legs of feeling. "I knew I had absent a lot of mobility, and the alarming allotment of that was I couldn't get done aback to the beach," he says of the bouncing surf. "I was amidst by lots of rocks and an acutely alarming bearings where, really, the abandoned way to escape was aback through the waves."
"I had to aggregation up all the backbone I could to survive," he says. "It was terrifying."
Adding to the drama: Due to the limited site, afterwards Dollar accomplished the bank with arch agony and a concussion, he had to await on advice to airing about a mile through ravines and up switchback trails to ability his car aloft a cliff, says surfing associate Griffin Guess, who collection Dollar to the hospital.
"It was absolutely a accumulation accomplishment to get him able to move," says Guess. "With all the abutment we had, he still had to do it himself. It's a phenomenon he didn't get bedridden on the way up. He is advantageous to be alive." Dollar, who holds the Guinness World Record for the better beachcomber anytime paddled into, charcoal in Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, California, in abiding action afterwards hospital X-rays appear four fractures in his neck.
But Dollar is optimistic that he will absolutely recover. "Hopefully, in two months, I'll be able to yield my [neck] collar off and activate absolute rehabilitation," he says.
"Luckily the breach isn't structural. I didn't blow my analgesic column," he says. "I accept to abide absolutely still. I accept to accumulate my movement down to a minimum so that I don't abuse myself to a point area I'm paralyzed. It's still a actual aerial situation."
"He Is Still Alive"
Dollar's wife Jenn, says: "This is traveling to be a boxy and continued recovery. It is not traveling to be easy, but we can get through this. He is here, he is still animate and will accept abounding advancement again, that's what counts. It's amazing and such a miracle. We are so awfully fortunate."
"He was so bent to get aback to assurance because he has a lot added he wants to do in this life. He said annihilation was traveling to accumulate him from advancing home to see his family," she adds.
Jenn hopes the couple's two children, son Kai, 4, and babe Kaylee, 7 months, will advice with the accretion process.
"I anticipate the kids are traveling to accept a big appulse on his healing. He said he cannot delay to authority his babyish babe again, and to play with his son," she says.
Dollar's acquaintance Guess is the arch buyer of Cartel Management, which runs the anniversary Titans of Mavericks big-wave cream challenge in which Dollar competes. "He is one of the top guys in big-wave paddling," Guess says. "If Shawn was a superhero, he'd be Captain America – nice to everyone, but a barbarian in the water."
Guess says that he and Dollar were out together, canoeing against the aforementioned beachcomber if the blow occurred. "He went in and I was searching for him, but I didn't see him appear aback out," says Guess. He briefly wondered if something was wrong, but says, "It was Shawn Dollar, and annihilation goes amiss with Shawn Dollar."
But for Dollar, that moment began what he alleged "my scariest and darkest hour."
He was 30 to 40 anxiety from bank at the time. "It wasn't accompanying to surfing big, alarming waves," Dollar says. "This was absolutely me just out surfing a spot. It's a alarming spot, but I was in a bearings that I anticipation I could handle."
He describes the ambiance as "large, adamant after-effects breaking appropriate on top of rocks the admeasurement of cars." Afterwards getting airtight into one such bedrock and breaking his neck, "I almost had the backbone to move, let abandoned get on my lath and paddle out and ascend over rocks to shore. It was just like I was in a alembic of rocks with after-effects breaking on me. With a torn neck, I was like, 'I don't apperceive if I'm traveling to be able to get myself out of here.' "
How He Stayed Calm
"We alternation for situations like this; you try to administer your risk. But I aswell apperceive that all you accept is yourself, and the abandoned way you're traveling to get out of a bearings like that is by blockage calm."
"There wasn't absolutely a way through the rocks, so I had to get aback on my surfboard and paddle out through the waves," Dollar says. Afterwards benumbed those after-effects aback to the beach, "I was just in so abundant affliction that I took some time to try to amount out: 'What in my physique is working? What movement do I have? What is the situation?' "
Says his acquaintance Guess: "He had a fight-or-flight [instinct], and he fought, and he did it with calm confidence."
The bulletin that sends to Dollar's fans, says Guess, is this: "If Shawn can do it, I can do it in my own life. You've got to accept in yourself."
Says Dollar: "I feel absolutely adored to accept that abutment about me. I'm absolutely lucky."
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