"It’s going to be a marathon not a sprint but we work every day to make sure he is surrounded with love, laughter and Ohana."
In an update via the GoFundMe page set-up to pay for the medical bills of former world champ Sunny Garcia his family reports,
“We are taking one day at a time and celebrating each little triumph. Sunny is a warrior and fighting everyday to get better and stronger. He has said a few words and is now in therapy daily – physical, speech and occupational. The family thanks you for your continued support for Sunny as he continues to heal. It’s going to be a marathon not a sprint but we work every day to make sure he is surrounded with love, laughter and Ohana.”
A family friend, Janae Twisselman, told the Hawaiian news channel Khon 2, “With the family members, he’s paying attention to voices. He can follow people’s faces. He’s moving his head. He’s speaking a few words. When he first started, he was in an induced coma a few months ago, and now we’re in a place where he’s functioning completely on his – you know for his physical self, his body – on his own.”
In April, Sunny, a perennial Triple Crown winner, was found unconscious at his home in Oregon, almost dead, and supposedly by his own hand.
A few weeks later, Sunny was off sedation, but still in a coma, with doctors treating his kidney and liver with dialysis (an induced coma, where the body and brain is anaesthetised often results in further complications). It was reported, then, that Sunny was “surprising doctors as he continues to get better.”
So far, $121,000 has been raised, of a $150k goal, to cover his myriad expenses.
Significant donations came from Jason Mamoa ($2000), Bruce Irons ($1500), GoPro’s Justin Wilkenfeld ($2000), moto-king Carey Hart ($1000), Hawaiian photographer Peter Hodgson ($1000) as well as cameos from Lyndie Irons, Nick and Tom Carroll, Luke Stedman, Ross Williams, Kirk Flintoff and Cory Lopez.
“If you are my friend I’ll go to war for you. I’ll give you the shirt off my back. But if I don’t know you and you are talking shit, or messing with my family or friends? Then I will punch you in the face. I don’t care. The press has always made me out to be a rough character but it is not who I really am. I just don’t have time for people I don’t coming up to me and causing problems.” SUNNY GARCIA
The most surprising donation came from Percy “Neco” Padaratz, who fled Pipeline in 2007 after he hassled hell out of Sunny in their Pipe Masters heat.
On the beach, Neco jumped a fence and climbed into the relative safety of the judges’ tower and was given a police escort back to his house.
When asked about his tough-guy image by Chas Smith, Sunny said, “I don’t fucking care. I don’t think of myself that way. If you are my friend I’ll go to war for you. I’ll give you the shirt off my back. But if I don’t know you and you are talking shit, or messing with my family or friends? Then I will punch you in the face. I don’t care. The press has always made me out to be a rough character but it is not who I really am. I just don’t have time for people I don’t coming up to me and causing problems. You would, too.”
Sonny was always nice to this haole when I lived on the North Shore…..I also treated him with much respect!
You need to get self esteem and self worth.
quite right – far too soon to say what the outcome will be.
kinda disgusting that none of the companies that made a lot of money off of him can’t throw in thirty grand to help his family out.
Excellent idea. Maybe a sponsor will step up. I know I would actively seek out products from a company that would put Sunny on their roster.
Yah, let’s make a company responsible for taking care of it’s forever-ago athletes. The job of a company is too make money. That’s the truth. Taking care of some dude you used to sponsor 10-15yrs ago is a ridiculous notion. Companies need to give back, yes, but what are they going to do when the other 100 surfers they used to sponsor fall ill mentally or physically? Are they supposed to kick down money for all of them too? Oh that’s right, this one guy is special compared to the other 100, so let’s have the company only support him. Geezus you’re a selfish prick.
Herpes flare up?
There is the possibility that some have and just did it directly so as to save the service charge. I’m hoping so.
Did companies really make a lot of money off him? I doubt it. In fact most companies lose money from giving away sponsorship deals.
Your previous employer made good money off you. Do you expect them to step up when get sick in the future? LMAO. You’re living in a dream world. Try reality for a change.
go die
It ain’t what kills you. It’s what doesn’t kill you.
Great surfer. True friend for the selective few.
But I’ll say what everyone else is thinking.
Karma. Is. A. Bitch.
nobody is thinking this
There are people thinking this. Not saying it’s right, but guarantee you people are.
yeah people who don’t know him and judge him on what’s reported on, in the media……but I can tell you first hand Sunny has group of friends and family , that all his detractors would die for…and that ‘s waht’s real in the whole sad episode!!!!
If it walks like a chicken, and talks like a chicken…Don’t give me this ‘media portrayal’ bullshit. Everyone knows, for many years, all around the world, Sunny treated people in the water like shit. At times he was a raging lunatic and most of the time he had zero respect for others. But don’t let truth get in the way of your idolization because an athlete is good at something.
jesus, that avatar!
Fuck. You. Punk.
Keep your utter lack of human compassion to yourself.
even if someone thought that way, a decent person would forbear from saying it.
also, i would hope more of sunny’s former adversaries might be like neco padaratz, capable of forgiveness and respect for someone who is suffering
and here I thought at least if nothing else on Beach Grit, this would be a sacred topic, and there wouldn’t be comments like your’s… come on man…
I’d delete it, but someone is always going to say something disrecpectful about such a polarizing person like Sunny. So I hope keeping this Idiots post gets it out of the way.
i wish i could be there to see it when yours smacks you right in the head
the worst Karma of all is wishing bad Karma on someone else……and no not everybody is thinking Karma caught up with him , but depression did….and that’s a fact !
A miracle is needed , and can still happen , believe!!!
thank you.
Hey all, enough of the pity party. This is fucking SUNNY GARCIA. Hawaiian champion. Marathon, not sprint. Let’s give him 5 years before writing him off. How cool when he’s paddling out in an honorary heat at Sunset and ripping walls and then coming in staring into Rosy’s eyes, talking shit about Brucey.
Death and Taxes, Sonny can’t get either of them right.
Sonny is kind of a hero to me and it hurts to see him like this.
Too soon!
Hope he’s still stoked to be alive even if he’s only a shell of his former self . He has that look of why the fuck am I still here I thought I’d checked out already.
These photos show a physical manifestation of his despair and suffering. I hope he finds himself surrounded by the love, comfort, and hope he needs to heal. Aloha, sunny.
Let’s keep an eye out for all our brothers, sisters, parents, children, friends, acquaintances, fellow internet chat room degenerates. If we see others suffering, let’s try to relieve it however we best can.
Depression sucks fucking dick, and destroys so many lives. It can fuck right off.
Some cunt better not start offering the family ‘stem cell treatment’ at $10k. Nothing seperates a family from their money quite like heart ache.
I was a junior doctor working at a Dora Nginza, a government hospital outside Port Elizabeth. 45 minutes to J-bay.
One night I resuscitated a newborn baby that had been born with no signs of life. Managed to get the heart beating but the brain was starved of oxygen.
‘We did everything we could’
The mother sat at the bedside, in the ICU, for 3 months, baby fitting and contorting, oblivious. Absent father, the 4 living kids in the care of a neighbor. Some things are worse than death.
I do elective hip and knee surgery now. Leave the life saving to others.
That could still be life saving to some mate. You do incredible things for people.
Hey Doc, your point is what really shakes me to the core about Sunny. Against all hope I fear that Sunny may never be the same and he’ll live out a life of complete misery without perhaps even knowing what he did, where he is or what he is. That vacant stare devoid of the big ass garrulous grin that we all knew. God Damn It. I wanna ask him “brah are you really still with us?”. I wanna ask if he really truly wanted to check out early or was it something that could’ve been worked thru? My heart aches for his family caught between a rock and a hard place living a nightmare. I know we’d all do the same if it was our loved family member or friend but I’m afraid that we may never be able to draw a bright line between a hopeless case and realistic recovery and rehabilitation. I know there’s no denying a negative irrefutable clinical diagnosis but I’m throwing in all my chips knowing that if anyone can beat the hard odds, it’s Sunny.
I had a client who is a trauma surgeon who wrote a book about the realities of the ICU – the expectations of patient’s families, the struggle of staff trying to provide care and the hard fact that only 20% (in AUD) make it out the other side. I remember he brought up an interesting opinion that because of the many TV hospital dramas, the general public has this impression that the ICU has an incredible success rate – when in fact it’s a last resort.
It’s a real eye opener & a fascinating read – “Vital Signs” by Ken Hillman
haunting
the pic of Sunny…
Yes. Heavy and very sad indeed. Some things are worse than dying. Hopefully he can find peace through this somehow.
Surfin won’t save us.
No, it won’t.
saved me
Peace and love to Sunny and his family.
Welcome to reality boys in this chat group.
Aloha emoji.
Sad to see. Sunny likely faces the same bleak future as Michael Schumacher. Probably would have been better to not use heroic medical procedures to save them. Sometimes the best decision is to let a person go.
Fuck me help a cunt out and shave his sideys the same length though would ya. Dunno what the best case scenario here is but hopefully he is happy to be alive. Best of luck.
I suspect he isn’t aware of much.
I know that they are trying to put a positive spin on this but Sunny will only ever be a shell of his former self.
My dad had a stroke a year and a half ago, and visiting him in the reconvalescent home was so awful. People not really recognising their wifes/husbands; old men who’d peed their pants; and yes, none of them had had a proper shave, which is somehow really awful and demeaning.
And everywhere that vacant ‘who are you/who am I/where is this/get me the fuck out of here’ stare.
And yet these places are a blessing, most countries don’t have em.
Absolutely, and I didn’t mean to speak badly of them. It’s just that there’s so much hopelessness and utter sadness and loss of dignity.
Yeah I feel ya
Been there with my old boy too.
I dunno the extent of what a coma does to someone, or the details of Sunny’s case, but fuck me that blank stare is hard to look at. Glad he’s alive.
I’ve seen that look before. Heartbreaking.