TRUE TO THE CORE

One sunny afternoon in Port Elizabeth in 1994, after a surf competition, I was travelling home with contest organiser Arno Lane when we got T-boned by a taxi which was moving at some serious speed. The taxi hit my side, smashing my door and me straight in the face. The bakkie spun off the street and up a grass embankment.

That’s what I remember, and I always refer back to this moment as the "Big Bang”. The day everything changed. I was 18 years old. When I was finally cut out of the wreck by the firemen, not being able to move, my thoughts and emotions started running wild. I had lost all movement from the waist down, and every