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Coordinated Care Close to Home Made a Remarkable Comeback Possible for One Kauaʻi Surfer

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I grew up in the ocean. Water and surfing is life to me and that's where I belong. The day was beautiful. 3 to 5 ft pumping. Um kind of first swell of the season. So everybody was pretty hungry. Wave coming in looking at a friend Leroy next to me. And at that same moment we noticed each other. So we I gave him a shotgun and he showed me shotgun on the left side. It's side by me. I got hit. At first I thought it was a boat surfer. Last thing in my head was a shark. The shark came from my side and climbed up into him and just drove through him and hit my leg first. Tore my leg open. All I saw just a mouth over my head. Bottom teeth was under my board. Just a big rainbow of teeth coming down. And I was just kind of in shock cuz I was didn't really believe what I was seeing to be honest cuz it was so quick and so silent. I don't know how I had the strength to hold it off. Try to regrab again. I sliced my fingers open just like a tiger war. Once the thing let go, I flung off the surfboard. At that moment, he came back up, surfaced, and and I told him, "Hey, can you swim to me?" Scariest part was just sitting there. I thought the thing was going to come back for some reason. and whitewash carried us in. Then Jeff McBride all of a sudden popped up. So I go, "Let's just get to shore." So just straight ahead beline it straight to shore. So I started pushing them, catching them, pushing them, catching them. Everything's running through my head. Paddling in. I was thinking about when can I get back in the water as soon as am I going to lose a leg? Am I going to be crippled? As we got to the shallow, we both picked Kevin up and carried him up to the beach. A lady came out of nowhere. My name's Nancy. I'm an EMT. Let's go. Perfect. You're up. She went ahead and put the tourniquet on. She started wrapping me up. By the time I got into the ambulance, I went ahead and called to my wife and my daughter and they was on a train coming home from Japan. He was acting really calm. He was saying, "I got bit by a shark at the bay in Honlay. The ambulance is rushing me to the hospital right now. I have to go. He hangs up and we don't know how bad it is.

What's unique about Kauaʻi is that every patient we take care of is someone that we know from the community. It was shocking when I got there and I saw it was Kevin, someone who I've known for more than 20 years, someone who I surf with regularly. I'm like looking at him. I was like, "Hey Dave." I was really, really surprised and really happy to see him. Another surfer helping me out. When I saw Kevin's leg, my first thought was, are we going to be able to save the leg? The teeth went through the muscle, through the tendon, down to the bone, even fracturing the bone. And with minimal blood loss, we were able to clean the wound and do a primary repair of his tendons that were lacerated. When I finally got to see my family, my wife and my daughter, I was super happy and I just like started crying. It was just hard to see my dad like that because he's super tough. He had not only the tendon injuries, but he had a nerve injury that usually requires more specialized subsp specialty care through a hand surgeon. And so I took the patient back to the operating room and was working on his ring and small finger injuries. To suffer both an upper extremity and a lower extremity trauma at the same time takes takes a lot of energy out of you. I feel like it was just as much of a psychological and mental injury and recovery that he needed to go through as well. We do have the best people here on the island. I got to stay here on Kauaʻi. We had the right doctors here. 5 months later, I was back surfing at the same spot that the accident happened. One of the reasons that we like to be in this field is that we help people to get back to doing the things that they love to do. Just inspiring to see courage, grit, determination, and that will that gets people through this very rough passage. And it's the joy of walking with patients through that valley of recovery and seeing them get back doing the things they love to do.

What began as a perfect morning in Hanalei Bay turned into Kevin's fight for survival – and a powerful story of teamwork, healing, and a surfer’s inspiring return home to the waves.

Every Donation Counts

Your gifts to our Hawaiʻi Pacific Health medical centers are invaluable. They help us create a healthier Hawaiʻi for our patients, our communities, and our state. They enable us to:

  • Create programs for preventive care, lifesaving services, and emotional support.
  • Invest resources to promote health and well-being.
  • Purchase equipment to advance technology.
  • Train physicians and caregivers, transforming patient care now and for the future.
Kapiʻolani Health Foundation Pali Momi Foundation Straub Benioff Foundation Wilcox Health Foundation Children's Miracle Network