Surfer-hero “Gordo the Great” reunites with Ukrainian nurse he saved from wild seas, “I just said ‘jump on’ and we paddled like gladiators!”

“She was in the most dangerous spot imaginable. I looked around and the only person who’s going to save her is me."

The larger-than-life surf cinematographer John “Gordo the Great” Gordon has been reunited with the Ukrainian nurse whose life he saved in a wild battle of “underwater jiujitsu” six months ago.

Gordo, sixty-one but presenting with excellent T levels and smelling like a locker room, filmed the world surfing tour for twenty years before being dumped by the World Surf League, inexplicably and without warning last year.

Gordo’s filmic career is marked by awards, acclaim etc. He worked for the Seven News network in Queensland for two decades, in between gigs with Jack McCoy and his series of iconic Billabong films, before shifting into surf full-time.

So when a Gold Coast-based Ukrainian nurse jumped into the water at Fingal up there on the NSW side of the border with the Gold Coast and Gordo saw her being washed around the headland, he wasn’t going to stand by and wait for Superman.

A day to blow or get blown!

“She was in the most dangerous spot imaginable. I looked around and the only person who’s going to save her is me,” said Gordo, who described trying to rescue the gal as like “underwater jiujitsu.”

The nurse, Liv Titor said:“I couldn’t believe it. I stepped into nothing and it got me straight away. Johnny jumped in with his surfboard, told me to hang on and said we’ll get through it together. And that’s what we did.”

Six months on, both of ‘em still have flashbacks about the event, Gordo haunted by what might’ve happened if he wasn’t there and Liv, nightmares about being back in the water and having her legs pulled out from under her by a ferocious current.

“I only took two steps into the water and I just felt this pull in my legs and it just took me around the rocks and out,” she told Channel Nine.

Now, Gordo plans on getting Liv back in the water before she’s sunk by fear of the ocean.

“We’re going to get back out there ’cause the ocean has got so much to offer, it’s so great but you’ve got to respect her.”