Kobi not only walked again, he surfed

Kobi grew up on the beach and in the water. He was working as lifeguard on Australia’s famed Bondi Beach and as a professional surfer when his life took a sudden unexpected turn.

While surfing one of Australia’s most treacherous areas, Kobi crashed headfirst into a shallow rock shelf.

“I knew I was in trouble,” he remembers of that day. “I was like, Oh, I’m not going to be good here. I couldn’t swim too well and I had just managed to come up and then the wave hit me again. All I was thinking was just praying that I had movement.”

Medical tests revealed damage to his cervical vertebrae. “I wondered if I would ever walk out of the hospital,” Kobi says.

After debating various options, the surgical team decided to implant a titanium device to stabilise the cervical spine. “Within days, I was walking around the hospital ward, and I went home one week later,” Kobi recalled. To the amazement of his medical team and his peers, Kobi was back to surfing in four months. “I was very grateful just to be walking, let alone going for a paddle,” he says. “So, it was pretty exciting.”