Surfers raise $26,000 to buy freakishly talented Caribbean amputee a custom titanium prosthetic leg!

"Team work truly is the dream work!"

Ten years ago, eleven-year-old Costa Rican Dariel Meléndez Davila was hit by a train while trying to escape a thief, his leg so mangled it had to be amputated in hospital, the kid conscious the whole time. 

Seven years later, Dariel got hit by a different train, this time the desire to surf.

He’d seen all the surfers around his home town of Puerto Viejo, but it wasn’t until he spoke to a pal who’d been to an Adaptive Surfing Camp that he realised there was a network out there of surfers dealing with disabilities and who could help him get into the game. 

Little by little, Dariel worked out how to balance on his one stilt, where to weight, where to unweight, until he got to a point where he surfs rings around plenty of us with two legs, hitting even Costa Rica’s heavier waves. 

Now, thanks to the intervention of noted filmmaker Logan Dulien (Snapt series) who created a gofundme to raise cash for a prosthetic limb and travel to the US to get the appendage fitted, Dariel is gonna get a custom titanium prothesis from Russ Molina, owner of Advanced Kinematics and one of the best in the biz. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CQcFrihhy2h/

Four hundred and twenty five donors hit the 25k goal in less than three days, the pot currently spilling over at $26,042. 

“He will come out start of September compete in the adaptive surf competition in Oceanside first week of September then after the comp he will spend 10 days in Palm Springs with Russel Molina getting a custom mold fit for the titanium leg,” Dulien told BeachGrit. “Then after that attend the Snapt4 world premiere in HB September 25th and then fly back to Costa Rica a few days later.” 

It ain’t gonna all be plain sailing, howevs. Dariel has never used a prosthesis. 

“He will first have to learn to walk and eventually surf. Will be work in progress,” says Dulien.