“My immediate thought was: ‘Will I ever surf again?’” J P Veaudry, 40, said yesterday.
“I mean, how can you surf when you’re missing a leg?”
Despite his initial doubts, after 28 years of surfing before his crash in May 2009, the lure of the ocean proved too strong.
Once he was fitted with a prosthetic leg, his first surf came five months after the accident.
He had been walking with the prosthetic for only one month at the time.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself when I went back into the water for the very first time,” Veaudry said
“I had no idea whether or not I’d be able to stand, but still invited a lot of people – friends and photographers – to [see] whether I’d be able to.”
Veaudry said by doing that he had no choice but to follow through and succeed in his dream of standing up to surf again.
“I was fortunate to stand up on my very first wave.”
