"What you're going through right now, brah, I can't even imagine."
Three weeks back, the life of Johnny Konings, born in New Zealand but living the surfer’s GC dream with his girl Charlotte, turned to hell when he butchered a takeoff and was pile-driven into a shallow bank at D-Bah.
“I just didn’t make the drop on the take-off and got tumbled around, covered up, because I knew I was about to take a beating,” says thirty-one-year-old Johnny, who’s now in a spinal ward in a Brisbane hospital. “And then, yeah, just impact straight onto the sand and came to the surface and knew straight away.”
Calling someone lucky when they can’t feel their legs might be a bit of a stretch, but the kid has a girl who looks like she’s gonna be around for the long haul
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“When life gives you lemons,” says Charlotte, “you throw in some lime, salt, a shit ton of tequila and make a bloody strong margarita.”
And, earlier today, Johnny’s DMs lit up with messages from UFC gods Israel “The Last Stylebender” Adasanya, Nigerian-born but who grew up, like Johnny, in New Zealand, and Australia’s pint-sized superhero Alexander “The Great” Volkanovski.
As a little extra icing, even Kelly Slater swung into the action, reposting Izzy’s message to Johnny.
Wanna help ’em out? The fundraiser has picked up a little since the last time we wrote about it, but still only 38 gees out of a hundred k goal. Click here to help Johnny and Charlotte out.
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Dang man.. so unlucky lad. How many times we all have almost done this, regulation egg out on a small day, shallow bank, or shelf and bam, spinal or neck injury. Gotta wonder, much like the grey suits we never see, just how close we’ve all come. One of Jonny’s boys should reacj out to Izzy and ask him to call pappy Rogan and get this lad into the Neuralink Trials. Seems a fairly big chance that Elon, or some other biotech firm that isn’t run by the real life Hank Scorpio, might be able to sqeak a young, fit lad into a trial or something. I have faith this kid is not only gonna walk again, he’ll get to know the shame of the head down paddle back out after he’s not gone over the hanga’s, or blowing a take off some other way, and will be catching waves again in his lifetime,. That next wave afger a blown one, clean entry, smooth bottom turn then cracking fuck outta the lip next wave after a kook out. Happens to literally everyone. Nate florence had a clip up the other day surfing a deserted ments dreamy right with Ivan, where he took off late on a pretty regulation drop, didn’t even manage to get to feet, pound town, then next wave, repeat!
Best of luck. Stay stromg eshay.
Why don’t you contact the dude to get copy rather than copying from elsewhere? The circumstances are unremarkable (took off, got pushed down) but the consequence is unusual and awful. Best of luck mate, I hope you get it back.
Massive condolences. Yet ideally with medical technology advancements there seems hope for recovering as the surfing & community at large are with you.