We'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast was produced, the Galligle people of the orination. We pay our respects to Elder's past and present.
It's March twenty sixteen and we're on Bombo Beach, about two hours south of Sydney. Brett Canellen is here to try and clear his head. He's had a bad day and knows that grabbing his surfboard and heading for the waves will be the antidote he needs. He's roped his friend's jol and Aggie into the mood boosting trip. Brett heads out into the surf. The sun is starting to set and the conditions are good. Brett reflects on the day. He thinks to himself, at least I've been able to
do something to make me feel better. But Brett's bad day is about to become a total nightmare. He's thrown off his board. The world goes silent. He's too afraid to look down. He sees Joel with panic in his eyes, racing towards him. I'm at Middleton and this is head game today. Brett Connelan on the surf that changed everything. Super stoked to have Brett Conelan on my podcast Head Game Now, talk about Headgame Car. He's had to battle
some serious psychological and physical trauma. He's sitting opposite me right now and I can see his leg and that is quite the munch, Brett, Car. I can just by looking at your leg, I can tell that you're super lucky to have.
It right, Definitely lucky to have it. Calling it a munch is definitely one way of describing It's.
Not some month has taken a big munch out of you.
Definitely. And it's quite an intro too, isn't it.
Yeah, I was going to get straight into your sat opposite there's no other intro to give. Wow, quite a scene to see. And having sort of seen sort of physical trauma in my career in the military and I'm now sitting opposite you, I appreciate what goes into it psychologically and the recovery. But have you always been attracted to the water? You know, what was your upbringing?
Like? Yeah, I have always been in and around the ocean. I grew up in a small seaside town and just by virtue of proximity to the water, you get into nippers and surf club and all these things. So from a very very young age I was I was always in the water, first of all, on a bodyboard. My dad grew up as a surfer, so he spent time trying to get family. So it wasn't until I was eleven years old that I actually jumped on a surfboard for the very very first time. And from that moment
I was one hundred percent just a pure surfer. I did a bunch of other sports at that time in my life and I dropped them all like and just wanted to surf. So from that point, like you ask, are you a surfer? Then definitely, when was your let's call it your lucky break.
When did you realize, actually, this is something I can do, you know, I could really really get my head into and do professionally.
It was It wasn't until much later on, until when I was about twenty one years old, is when I had that realization. And I didn't have much success in
the early days of my surfing. I had success locally in some of the competitions around where I live and in board riders, but with the bigger competitions on like a state in the nationwide level, I had always really struggled to get past the second or third round, and I kind of got to the age of leaving school, like eighteen years old, and I was faced with the decision of what what do I do with my life?
Like I had no real solid results that would indicate that I was going to become a professional surfer, but I still wanted surfing to be a big part of my life. So I actually moved to the Gold Coast for university and did Surfing Studies, which sounds like the most ridiculous, bizarre course that you could ever do in Australia, not in Australia exactly. It's the main reason I wanted to do that was it It's a course that gives you a look at a bunch of different subjects that
they're all surfing specific. So you'll do marketing and events management and hopefully you'll find something that you want to do that you can follow a career with later on. But that was one reason that I did it. I knew it would give me options, especially if the surfing thing didn't work out. But the Gold Coast is really where the surfing scene is in Australia, and moving up to there, I knew I was going to at least have a chance to be seen and noticed, and I'd
be able to enter a few more events. And when I was up there, I loved doing my UNI, and it's where I got my first ever proper sponsor. Was up there, just surfing a beach one day and a guy who made surfboards came up to me and said he really liked to look my surfing.
He wanted to support me.
And that confidence, yeah, really really cool, and that confidence that built. I ended up moving back from the Gold Coast. Essentially, I got sick of how busy it was up there. A small town. I'd go for a surf at home, there's like three or four people out, whereas you for a surf at Snapper Rocks or anywhere up there, and it's hundreds and I'd always I found it really difficult not to be able to find that little pocket or that corner to myself.
So I moved home for that.
But when I did the surfing was you're making decisions on your career, on your life due to surfing exactly. Yeah, you're living and breathing it. Let's be honest, you know UNI, You're loving your UNI. But this is what you want to do.
Yeah, And my mindset and the reason I did the UNI was I've always want to leave the door open for professional surfing if it's available, if I keep improving and things get better, but you've got to be realistic and I wanted to back myself up with a career.
So yeah, there was a lot of decisions.
That were made that I guess from the outside they look like they are very very much driven by the love of surfing, which which they absolutely were. So when I moved home, I had kind of settled back into working for a surf shop down in Woongone, close to where I live. I was surfing riding for a new surfboard shaper, a new sponsor that I was also working for, and had actually started surfing for my local board riders
team that I grew up surfing for again. And this event popped up called the Australian Board Riders Battle, and it's like a team's event where you surf for your club. So I had all these people that had grown up surfing for as a team of six. You go and surf against all the other board riders clubs in the area. And they had one event which was at Bombo Beach, my local beach.
And yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was me, Me and a couple, a couple of older guys who had been in the club for a long time, and a couple of the younger surfers as well, and we ended up winning this competition and it's the first competition that our club had won in over twenty years, so it was really big for our club.
But what it did is it qualified as.
For the national final of this event, so all the teams from all over Australia come to it was in Cronulla that year and compete against each other.
Do you remember that moment Do you remember thinking wow, this could potentially be a game changer for me?
Not immediately. It wasn't until I was actually at the event that it all hit me. So the unique thing about this event is it was the only event at the time where the World Tour actually permitted their surfers to compete in. So usually if you're on the World Tour, you can only compete in World Tour sanctioned events. So there are some of the best surfers like Mick Fanning Owen right, like all these other great surfers who were
just surfing for their local clubs. So when I realized it was actually an opportunity to go up against these people that I dreamed of going up against and surfing against, I realized that was probably the opportunity, and that the weekend came around for the event and we did better than expected.
So we came sixth overall, So the sixth best club in Australia.
That's big and it was something that when I actually got to sit back and realize what we'd done in the space of having a club that hadn't won an event in decades to being the sixth best in Australia against some of the best surfers in the world, I realized that, you know, maybe I do belong I think being able to surf against some of the best and perform and be satisfied, I almost gave myself permission to believe that it's somewhere where I belonged.
So basically, you've got this opportunity at your feet, you come six which is great, and then you have a bad day. Right, talk to me about your bad day, because what it leads on to is obviously the month that I spoke about at the beginning of this podcast. But go on how bad was the day?
So my day started out at two thirty am, received a phone call from my boss of the surf shop that I was managing at the time, saying the shop had been broken into. So he said, there's nothing you can do right now. Obviously I was leaving forty five minutes away. You said, I just want to let you know, so when you come in you know what to expect. I think that's a bit of foreshadowing, Like if if you knew what was to come, I probably should have gone back to bed and like just called it quits
for the day. But you know, you only look at these things in hindsight when something's happened, right, So I going to work that day dealing with police, cleaning up broken.
Glass, doing all of that. So not a great day definitely.
Like I remember leaving work that day and I was like, I just need to go for a So.
And what they've broken in that? Have they destroyed stuff? If they pinched stuff.
They smashed the front window and stole anything that was kind of within arms reach of the window, so it sounds ridiculous, but they took like backpacks and socks and things like that, which is I've always thought it was silly because the surfboards that were on the rack are worth one thousand dollars.
But you can't run away with several surfboards.
It's you know, it's always going to be a bad day if anything gets broken into no doubt. So I leave the shop that day and I get in the car. I sent two messages to both my mates. One to my good friend Nick, who I grew up surfing with, and another one to a good friend of mine, Joel, who I.
Had spent a bit of time living with.
And he's someone who i'd always kind of send a message to because he's got the camera.
He'd always come and take photos or film or something like that.
So send a message to Nick, and I was like, can go and go for a surf out Bombo when I get back. I don't know what it's like, but I'm going to go out there and send the same message to Joel. Nick messaged me and just said I'm not going to make it, but Joel said, yeah, I'll try and get down there. I got to the beach after driving home, so forty five minutes later, Joel.
What time will we time? Do you hit the beach?
Roughly just so about quarter to six?
Who quarter six at night?
Yeah, so the sun's so it's.
Late issue moon to late afternoon at that stage, like it is. It's March, so the days are still semi long. But yeah, I get there and obviously Nick's not there, and Joel's also not there. Joel is notorious for being late. Is that mate that if you called to do something, you're probably better off calling him an hour before, so he can get there still a little bit late, but not as late as what he would So I rock up in the waves look really fun. So I'm like, okay,
I'll just go out anyway. And I go down to the beach and there's a bunch of people surfing right up in the northern corner. And as I said, I'm not a big fan of surfing with these people a lot of the time, and especially after that day, I was like, I kind of just need to be by myself rather than people ask me, you know what I think about surfboards and fins and things like that.
So I spot a little left.
Hand bank down the beach and I'm like, okay, we'll just go and surf there. I'll be by myself. That'll be fun. So I'm sitting out there surfing for about twenty minutes, thirty minutes before I look in and Joel rocks up.
So it's good. He's that's pretty on time for Joel, which is good.
So you're pretty impressed with him at this time.
I am. I am. So he rocks up, he paddles out, and we share a few waves.
Now, did that put a smile on your face? You know, I know that you want to be alone, but you've obviously called him for a reason. You've had a crappy day. Do you feel better already just hitting the water.
Yeah, Like I know that I'll always be happier in the ocean. There's something about being in the salt and just surfing that it's always made me feel good, so I know it has that, But also like being able to share that with someone and talk about the day, like that's.
What that was great for.
So Joel comes out, we share a few waves, I'm telling him about the day, and.
You know, it's bye.
We'd probably been surfing for like another thirty forty minutes, and by that stage I do have a little smile on my face, like it hasn't fixed what happened, Like it hasn't repaired the front window of the shot, but I feel a lot better because of it, and I'm like, Okay, at least you know this has all happened, so.
Yeah, what's done is done. Now it's time to yet.
Yeah.
So Joel catches a wave and he gets quite a nice wave. He's probably about one hundred and fifty meters down the beach and I'm just sitting there reflecting on the day that's happened, just thinking about where it started, or obviously all the way back at two thirty am, thinking, you know, it's been bad, but at least I've been able to do this.
And I'm looking back towards the beach.
Joel's now wife, Aggie, she's on the beach, came down to watch him surf, which she doesn't usually do. She's sitting there in a blanket, watching the sun starting to kind of go behind the mountain there. And as I'm sitting there having that thought of like, at least I've been able to turn this day around, I get hit from my right side with immense force and I got thrown off my surfboard and I land in the water.
And before I can even look around to figure out what has happened, where it came from, what it is. I look down as a shark biting into my leg.
So, Brette, your first knock is not the bite. No, So the first knock is sort of like an Auca attack. When they knock the knock the seals off the ice and then they attack from So that's that's sort of is a calculated attack.
It seems like, I mean, it feels like it.
It's one of those things you don't know in the moment, but yeah, looking back on it, and it seems like that was, you know, almost the intent of what was absolutely so, yeah, I look down and I'm just looking. I'm confronted because there's this shark biting into my leg, and there's this there's this really clear moment where everything
just stops. And I know there's a lot of different ways to try and describe this moment, but I think the best way to try and talk about what it felt like is just saying, there's a profound sense of reality to the situation. You don't exactly know what's going on or how bad it's going to be or anything like that. You've got no thoughts other than this is real, serious yeah, knowing what's happening, and obviously that moment where time is kind of standing still, like you're just frozen.
And for me, like I remember just trying to actually take stock of what's happening, and there's there's probably three main things that I can recall from that. There's obviously more that's going on, but three things that stand out to me now.
The first one is the feel.
Of the shark's skin, so as it's biting down on my leg, I'm trying to like almost push it away and can feel this really rough skin on the top of its nose.
The second thing is just the complete absence of sound.
There's no water splashing and yeah, there's no no even like ringing sound.
It's just complete silence.
And this one is really interesting to me because I know I'm screaming for help straight away because of what Joel's recount is, but there's nothing for me, like it's just total silence, and it's it's so eerie in that moment because it doesn't feel real, like there's the things don't line up, like you're looking down at something you should be able to match things up, and it's not computing exactly, so there's That's the second thing. And the third thing I can remember is just the look in
the shark's eyes. Like I think a lot of people think the defining look of a shark would be its teeth and how sharp they are. But for me, when you look at a shark's eye and it's it's got no emotion, no feeling, it's just a black dot, and that that for me is just terrifying, Like it's it's something that you know, I say that, you know you can't reason with it, you can't argue it, you can't
tell it to stop. There's there's just this feeling of hopelessness within that moment that you're at the mercy of this creature and there's just nothing that you can do about it. And I think the hopelessness of that moment kind of sums up the entire experience, Like I'm at the mercy of this creature and there's not a whole lot that I can do in this situation that's going to make it better or help me get out of it.
And that that moment of you know, all of that that I just described probably only happened in.
Two or three so split seconds, and that moment that you have because I've experienced it when I've gone been into combat, when ultimately, when you're walking that line of life and death, you know, there's you know, you're either going to come out of it alive or you're going to come out of it dead. There's no there's no complications, there's no bs, you know, there's no it's it's as pure cut as that. You call it the purest form
of life. And you do. You you can't make sense of it, and like you said, you can't hear anything. You can't you know, really make any any rational reality of it. So therefore that there's those split seconds where you just almost as if your whole body in your mind is zoned out in that moment he said, you've got your senses. Yeah, that's about it. It's a I've experienced it before. But obviously you didn't have a shark
hanging off my leg, fortunately for me. But even that bump, you didn't even know what was going well, you didn't even know what was going on until what the shark took the chunk out your leg? When did sort of you know, you know, you sort of flash back into reality, don't you, And you're just like Wow, what's happened here? And how did you get out the water?
So that that takes a bit of time to kind of get to that moment. I For the next little while, I'm doing things, making decisions, trying to react, but I don't think any of them were decisions that I consciously made. Like we talked before about that gut instinct and how that works. What happened after that, totally out of my control,
obviously worked out for the best. Because I'm alive. I'm kind of in that frozen state, and I think the first thing that anyone who has heard anything about being attacked by a shark would assume that you have to do in a moment like that is punch in the nose.
Poke in the eyes.
Yeah, much easier said than done. I'll say I tried to punch it in the nose, but if you've ever tried to punch true water, nearly impossible.
Yeah, So that doesn't.
Work, and I make what is considered to be the mistake of pulling away from the shark.
So this is how I lose the chunk of my leg.
So essentially, when a shark has a hold of your leg and you pull away from it, it doesn't kind of get the memo and let go that you don't want to be bit by it. It holds onto that chunk of flesh and as I pull away from it, it just completely separated from my body. So it's a gruesome thing to think about.
I have no idea in the moment that that's what's happened.
You don't even know that half your leg ultimately is missing.
No, because the first that I the first thing that I do is just know not to look down.
And this is something that I have survival mechanism, exact survival mechanism, because you don't want to panic. See, you know, something really bad has happened, but you don't want to look at it and acknowledge it and then for it to compute in your head because then panic will set in. And it is a survival mechanism.
It's really smart.
I didn't choose to do it, no, it just it just happened that way, which I'm incredibly lucky. You know, if I did look down and go into shock and panic, the outcome, you know, I would.
Have started losing blood quicker. It would have been a lot worse.
So again, instinct is a very strong force and I'm lucky that that's the instinct that I have. So as it separates this chunk from my body, I obviously realized that this is my chance to escape. So I put my head down and just start swimming as hard as I can towards the beach, and I get about twenty twenty five meters further in, and I have this this
is kind of where everything comes back. I have this thought, which is I wonder if it's going to come back again to kind of give you this Where I was, where I was sitting when it first bit me, that was probably about one hundred and fifty meters from the shore. So I'm still not one hundred meters away from the shore when I have that thought, and I look over my shoulder because you've got to check. And when I look over my shoulder, I see it rushing towards me
like it's right there. And again there's nothing now I can do in that situation other than put my hands out to try and stop it. And I'm right handed, so my right hand's got pretty good aim. That lands square on its nose. Luckily, my left hand takes a little detour through its mouth, snags itself on a few teeth. These are the not munch the cool scars, Like that's just brushed against the tooth there and pulled this massive
chunk of skin out of my palm. There's a couple of other little cool teeth marks there, yeah, the cool scars, but just from brushing against it. And obviously when I realize where it is, I try and pull it out as fast as I can. And there's this next moment where I've got like both hands on the nose of
the shark. It's pushed me through the water. I'm feeling the power and the force that this thing's got as it's like kind of swimming me towards the beach, and I'm like, how do I get away from this time? Like I had to give up a large chunk of my cord the first time, What's it going to take this time to get away from it. That's like what
I'm trying to realize in that moment. Obviously this stage, I've got a little bit more sense, and I'm starting to actually compute things a little bit more, and I'm looking around because I'm just trying to figure out what's available, what I can do. I don't have my surfboard at that stage, because when it hit me the first time, its teeth cuts through my leg rope. So when I got thrown off my surfboarder, I was immediately disconnected from it. So I'm looking around to see what I've got. I
don't have a surfboard, I don't have anything. And I see a wave approaching because we're just inside where it's breaking, and I think to myself, I think the only thing I can do, like last ditch effort, really is when the wave hits me and hits us, try and push the shark to one side and just hope that that way is going to push me into the beach. So the waves approaching, I'm like, I hope this works, because if it doesn't, I'm like, I don't know what's going
to happen. Next the wave hits me, I pushed it to the left and just immediately doing front flips underwater. And that's obviously a good thing in this situation because it's pushing me towards the beach and I surface after get then tumbled in quite a way and I'm actually able to stand up.
I'm on the sand bank and it's about waste eap the water, so it's good.
It's washed me in quite a way. And I look up again, and luckily I don't see the shark another time. I look up and see my good mate Joel, just paddling towards me as fast as he can.
So luckily he'd heard.
My screams back at the start when I couldn't hear anything, and luckily he made the brave decision to paddle towards me instead of to the beach. And the first thing he says, he looks back on. He says, it's the dumbest thing to ask, but he says, is it bad.
I'm like, mate, I'm like, it's not good.
So he realizes, like he can obviously he can see the blood in the water. He can see how bad it is just from where he is, and he just puts me on his surfboard and tries to get me into the beach.
And he takes me all the way into the beach.
It takes quite a while because we get stuck in a little rip, and like it's one of those things where I'm losing energy as we're getting close to the beach.
So I'm able to.
Help and less losing consciousness. I can't imagine. I can't believe how switched on you were, because in a sense of panic like that, especially when you start to realize it's like, don't look behind, just just swim just you know, just just get out of here. And if you didn't have looked behind you, you didn't see, then you'd no doubt not be here. You know, let's let's be honest,
when do you first take a look? Obviously Joel's in there, you're on your board, you get when do you have the nerve to take a look to see, like Joel said, how bad it is because you didn't know at this stage.
Right three weeks after it happened, I realized there was nothing good was going to come from looking down at the lake. I could sense just by the way that Joel looked at it that there wasn't something.
That So when you stand up in the in the sand, you.
I can't feel anything. There's no pain the whole time.
Yeah, and that's so that's another thing that's kind of helping me there, that I just don't know.
You're almost better off being blisfuly.
Ye, naive to the to the attack.
Yeah, yeah, so I I didn't look for for a long time, but could easily tell just by not only Joel, but as more people came over to try.
And help how bad it was.
So it was one of those things that almost paints itself like in your own head, which is as you know, that can be its own, you know, struggle when it comes to the expectations that you formed further down the track.
But I wasn't thinking that far ahead at the time.
Wow, so you hit the hit the shore. What's your last memory of of of sort of being on the shoreline once you're once you're you know you're safe.
Yeah.
So I was conscious on the beach right up intol the helicopter took me away. So I was there when Joel ran off to go and get help from his partner Aggie. I was there when another bystander on the beach, whose names John, came over and helped Joe tie the torner cave. I could remember all the people who were surfing on that bank further up in the north corner as they came in one by one, and there's face that I know, and seeing the shock on their faces and like I was almost I.
See you're pretty coherent.
I'm really like I I think I tried to stay as calm as I could throughout that situation, because if I was panicking, that wasn't going to be good. My my tactic, I guess it would be, was when people had come up like a new person, I'd say how are you to them? So I remember like my good mate Geordie, who I did competitions with when I was younger. He came up and was like, hey, Jeordie, how are you? And he just looked at my leg and was like, big, yeah.
I'm good buddy. Here.
You know I'm looking so good that Wow. I'm incredibly lucky to be live.
Obviously, yeah, absolutely, I'm I'm lucky with where the shark bit me. It missed my femeral artery by two millimeters. If that had been seven, I would have made it to the beach. I was lucky that Joel was there, obviously he would know his track record and being there on time. I was lucky to paddle towards me. I was lucky that his partner was on the beach that afternoon. She's an intensive care nurse, so the first respond is an intensive care nurse. John that I mentioned before, off
duty nurse. I've spoken like I'm incredibly lucky to be here. And I've spoken to those people about the incident, obviously long after it's been and I remember John saying that for all the situations that he's been in, anything medically related, anything emergency related, he said, that's the calmest that's been And he says he thinks it's just due to how calm I was, and in which I guess I was
trying to manage things in that moment. I think that just my approach just came out of almost the fear of, you know, knowing what could happen if it was as bad as what it could be. So I was almost just trying to remain disconnected from it for as long as I could, which explains not looking at the leg for.
Say, definitely defense mechanism.
So like I having all those people do all the right things on the beach is I can't credit them enough with saving my life and doing everything they could to get emergency services there in the helicopter. The last memory I have was getting loaded into the helicopter and my mom and dad got down to the beach.
Oh your mom and dad were.
They lived five minutes away, So that's its own thing like I up until that stage, like until my parents got there, it was very much process and survival and all of these things. When they got there, that's when emotion comes in. And that's emotion comes from seeing my mom obviously distraught, like she doesn't know what this situation is going to lead to, if it's going to be the loss of her son, what that's going to be. It's really tough seeing your mom in a situation like that.
I think I had a harder time seeing my dad in a situation like that, and the reason isn't easy to protect her is and I think just what the
situation was. So as my dad's worked in foreign rescue his whole life, so he arrived almost ready to jump into action, like he's used to being a part of these situations and knows how to help out, coordinate things, do all this, but instead of being able to do any of that, he's actually being held back, not being able to do what's normal, And like, can you imagine what that'll be like if you were in a situation
like that and you can't you can't help. And there's there's actually a photo of me getting taken off the beach and Dad just standing on the outside just looking like there's he's just stunning ghost, and that those emotions are what makes that whole situation so different in that moment to what it was the entire time.
Up until there.
And when the emotions kicked in. Was that did that go from you going hey, hey, you doing mate to being in a different headspace?
I would say so.
But it's also the time in that whole scenario where they'd given me painkillers and they'd started.
To really take over.
So like there was as I'm getting, you know, loaded onto the helicopter, I just remember Mum. She really wanted to come with me, but there was a tiny helicopter and she couldn't come, and she was like she was at that point where she was like, is this actually going to be the last time I see my son? I don't know if he's going to make it to the hospital, and she's got to go sit in a calf two hours to get to the hospital and not know what the outcome is going to be on the
other side. And I think there's that's like the last thought that I have as I as I go in there and end up getting knocked out by all these painkillers and things like that, So the do.
You can't remember anything from the helicopter ride.
I had a dream when I was on the helicopter, which was a really strange dream. I essentially dreamt my recovery. So I dreamt waking up in hospital hearing that I had, you know, these injuries to my leg and that I had to learn how to walk. In in my dream, I'm like in the gym lifting weights, learning like slowly learning how to walk and getting back to a normal life and the now you can. Sometimes you have those dreams that are so real, but they also you know they're a dream.
Yea, yeah, it was.
It was one of those ones. So it was almost like this, it kind OF's nearing to the end of the dream and you feel like you're almost got to go back to square one. I've never been someone who would consider myself, you know, typically spiritual in any sort of way, but I think there's something about that dream which was almost instructive of the recovery, even though it wasn't real, I think it at least showed me that there's a narrative that you can tell yourself that it
can happen. And that's where I think in times of uncertainty and in times when your backs against the wall, a lot of the times, that's the only thing that you've got, it's the only thing you can control. So I think I lean on that dream quite a lot when you know, I wake up in the hospital and I am back at square one, and I'm like, this sucks, Like I've got to deal with this in real time
now and go through everything. But there's that little piece where you like, I kind of know that something can happen, that something can be made of this situation, as bad as it can be, and like, at that stage, you don't really even know what the future is going to look like, because I didn't know the full extent of my injuries as of yet, and I didn't know what it was going to take to be able to get
back to any sort of normality in my life. So that the dream itself is it's something that it could easily just be looked at and been like, it's just a dream, it's nothing, but you took holder that.
I think, yeah, it was.
Again, it was one of the few things that I had to kind of, you know, grab onto in those early days for sure.
So when do you actually realize the severity of the shark attack. You know when you the first time you look at your leg.
So again, like, there's that happened three weeks after the attack, so a lot happens in that time. The first time I actually realized as the severity of the attack was when the doctors were telling me about it. So they come in early on after they've been able to assess it. They're like, you've lost about three quarters of your left quad, so it's pretty bad.
We're not sure if we're gonna have to amputate or not.
So there was a question that they might have to take it off completely.
Yeah, they were really unsure in the early days. They were saying, we're still like they said, it was a mess when it first came in, covered in sand and just bits everywhere, and they couldn't they couldn't really figure out what was left, what was taken. So they were really really unsure, and they're like, we don't know if there's been any damage to the actual bone, and if there's damage to the bone, they like, we will have to amputate.
So I just remember the first time I heard them.
Saying amputators scared me so much, And I just remember first of all just being like, if there's anything else we can do, like, I'll take that option. I don't care what, because there's something about like obviously there's a point where it's not a choice and you don't really get to choose whether your leg gets amputated or not. But I just remember how the thought of after they told me where the wound was and everything, the idea of throwing away the knee down, which is perfectly fine.
I was like, I don't want to have to do that, like it's getting rid of good parts. So I was like, if there's anything, and they're like, we're looking into a few other things they can do. So they came back the day after and they like, we're looking into this operation, which is going to be a bit of an experiment in a way, just to see what we can do. What they ended up doing is they took my entire left lap muscle from my back and they transplanted that
into my leg. So as you look at my munch leg that there is actually my back muscle.
Oh way, bash your back muscle. Yeah.
So they take the lap muscle from the back transplant that into the leg. Because it's about fifteen centimeters of exposed bone that they've got to cover up, so they put that in there. They connected blood supply to keep it alive. They connected nerve, which they say might make it work at some point in the future, but it's not about that. It's just about trying to stave off
the imputation. So they do a bunch of skin grafts and that's what they did for the operation, and there was so much uncertainty with that, but I was just happy that I had the chance to keep it. So I was like, whatever, what they can do now, it's amazing. It is amazing what they can do in the operating theater.
One thing doctors haven't quite nailed though, is the delivery of the prognosis, because they're like, we've been able to do this great thing, but we don't think you're going to be able to walk again, and you're definitely not going to surf again. So that's reality coming straight back. So like, you get given this whole but then just taken straight back away, and that was its own thing
to deal with. And I think another reason why it took me so long to look down at my leg is just because I knew if I was going to look at it and it looked bad. I'd just fall into believing what they'd said. So I was like, I just want to put it off for as long as possible,
focus on what I can. And it was hard because I was getting some of the operations, especially when they were changing my dressings where they lift my leg up because I because I had no quad muscle to oppose the hamstring, my leg was hyper flexible, so they could lift it up where it was like next to my head and I know it's right there and I'm I'm looking away, but I I'm.
Just imagine you're going yeah, and I'm still not gonna you know that takes willpower maybe to be fair.
Well, I got a glimpse of it very early on where part of the dressing on the upper leg had fallen down and that's where it's all stapled together, and it just looked like a zipper that was trying to pull apart, and I was like that again, it was just reminded. I just didn't want to look at it. So throughout those three weeks, I'm obviously dealing with what
life's going to look like. I'm trying to figure out how to live life from there and there's obviously the reality of what that might look like, but then you're also trying to give yourself that bit of hope of being like, you know, maybe maybe maybe we can we can do something to overcome this. And the first time I did look at the leg I had to kind of get myself ready for it. I had to tell, you know, people around me, Okay, this is going to be the day, and actually have a look.
And to be honest, it wasn't as bad as what I.
Thought, which is that's a number bonus.
Right it is, And I think it really kind of just goes to show the way in which we can paint those pictures in our heads of how bad and how terrible things can be, and it's not always the case, but a lot of the time they're not as bad as what you think. And I think that was probably I mean, it might have been a different story if I looked down and it was it was awful, But I remember looking down and being like, we can work with this. It's not as bad as what I think.
And at that stage, I'd gotten a heap of support, so I'd started getting messages from people, you know, friends, family members, community, all of these people like people you wouldn't expect as well. Yeah, and then the surfing community worldwide. I remember when I was growing up, there's a surfing magazine called STAB Magazine, and it was my favorite magazine.
My dream for so long is to.
Get a video featured on their website, and it wasn't until I was attacked by a shark and they did a story on it that one of my videos that I did with Joel made it onto their website and people actually saw it and loved it, and I started getting support off that, started getting people like Owen and Mick Fanning and Kelly Slater sending me messages and I was.
Like, oh, wow, that's cool.
The support that you receive in those times is it's incredible. And I don't think you realize the support that you have until something bad happens, and it's honestly, it's a terrible way to find out. And I felt all of that, and there's one person who's part of that support, who I credit with essentially i'd say, changing my life, definitely changing the course of my recovery. So I'm laying in hospital one day and I get a text message come through. It's from a number that I don't know. But guy
introduces himself. He says, hey, my name Scott. Actually went to school with Joel. I'm a physiotherapist from a local physiotherapy clinic in Kayama, so very close to to where I live. He kind of he'd heard about me and my story and he just wanted to offer his services in physiotherapy to help me get better. And he said, look, you've obviously got a long road ahead of you. We said, people failed not from aiming too high and missing, but from aiming too low and hitting. He said, look ab
with determination and set lofty goals. And I remember steering at that message for a good ten to fifteen minutes and just thinking about essentially what it meant. And the first thing, like, I had to figure out what it means to aim too low and to miss, because that's something that we don't really think about all that often.
And I guess the best way I used to describe it is like, and you'd have to excuse the lack of a better metaphor and a story about a shark attack, but what it means to aim too low and to miss, it's the equivalent of like choosing to go fish in a puddle or a pond as opposed to the vast open ocean. Yeah, the puddle in the pond can be safe and comfortable, but you're fishing there at the expense of Yeah, of course. So it got me to look
at the goal that I was going to set. So I had to look at what it meant to be ambitious and to set a lofty goal, but also what it means to miss and what failure you know, what role failure plays. And I realized the only thing that would stop me from setting a lofty and ambitious goal from that point was the fear of failure, which was kind of easy for me to cast aside at that point in time because I had no other options. There was only really opportunity in front of me. And we
talked about, you know, that regret. I didn't want to look back and didn't think I made the most of my recovery. So I just replied to Scott and said, you think I'll be able to surf again? And he was like, yeah, because if that's your thought that.
The doctor said you not, you'd be lucky if you walk again, let alone surf, And so you went straight up to.
I went straight straight to me.
And it's obviously, like it can seem silly to a lot of people to be like, why would you know have the hubris to think that you can do that? But I think just hearing Scott's encouragement, like he was like, mate, if that's your thought, that's all we need, shows me your intention. I'll set up a recovery program that will head us in the direction of helping you surf again. He said, I have no idea how far we'll get,
but at least let's give it a crack. That that for me, kickstarted my recovery Like it didn't happen overnight, took time, but working closely with Scott, he was the
perfect person to help me get through it. Like I can't credit him enough with helping me get through that obviously, Like I'm the one that has to get in there every single day and do the work, but without having him believe in me and actually support me through that, like it was good to It's really good to have someone who can help you physically work your way through it, but then to be there as a friend and a mate and a supporter who wants the best for you
like that, I think is a pretty unstoppable combination. So he helped me massively over the coming months as we worked our way through this recovery.
How long after until you let's let's get past the walking bit, let's go straight to this. So how long after till you jumped on a surfboard and you caught your first wave after the shark attack?
It was five months after the attack.
Five months? Yeah, that's it. That's that's it. Which is he's going to say five years?
No, So it's it's something. I It was the longest five months of my life. Obviously, time is different depending on the way in which I know. A lot of people look at it in that way and they say five months is like nothing. It wasn't not as bad as what it was, And I was like, no, to be honest, I when I set myself that goal of wanting to surf against it was the only thing I cared about.
I was incredibly.
Lucky that I had all those people supporting me that set up that basically put me in a position where they were like, your recovery is your full time job right now. So I was doing it seven days a week and going in every single day obsessed with it, and it wasn't obsessed in the way that I had to go in there and be the best every single day, Like it was just my mindset was actually just to show off every single day and trying to be a little bit better than the person I was yesterday.
As well over and over again. Yeah, and that.
Those tiny percentages isn't it is tipping up you know, zero points zero one more of a percent than you did yesterday. This zero to one hundred doesn't exist, you know. It's it's about acknowledging that it's going to know, it's going to take time. And but as long as you're on that trajectory of you know, and it's going up tiny substrata of a percentage at the time, then you know you're winning. That are small victories that you.
Need right exactly.
And those victories, it's funny in a recovery like that, those victories are really easy to see in the early days, like you make a huge amount of progress.
They get smaller as time goes on. And that's that's.
Where recovery does get difficult. When you're really really close to your goal and it's right there, but you just can't jump there. You have to kind of trust that you are still doing the right thing and you are going to get there. But that's really really tough to deal with. As much as it looks like you're you know, when you look back at where you started and where you are, you should be so proud of getting to that point, but you just want to get that little
bit more and that little bit more. That for me, was probably the hardest part of my recovery, and that's where I really had to lean on a lot of that support.
That was around me.
And I've mentioned Owen Write's name a few times as we've been talking. I know you've chatted to him before. I just ran into him at a local cafe when
he was going through his injury. And one of the big things that helped me through that back half my recovery was after I chatted to him and saw some of the struggles that he was going through, it made me realize that it wasn't just specific to me, like these are things that everyone has to deal with, and I think there's a bit of comfort you can take in knowing that people have been through those tough times before and they've gotten through them and you can do
the same. And I think that was one of the things that got me over that last fifteen percent to the point of surfing again.
Love it, mate, love it. And what I find fascinating about this story and there was an opportunity to have the shark cold and you said no, you didn't even question that. The answer, did you?
Is like no, no, exactly when you grow up a surfer and you're going into that environment every single day, you know that that's their home, like it's it's something. I in no set of circumstances, could have felt any sort of malice towards the shark, just based on who I grew up as a surfer, believing like it's it's something that it wasn't even a question. And I think I didn't feel this in the moment, but this is something I've gained with a bit of perspective and some
time to think about it. I, despite what happened to me, have a huge amount of love and respect for sharks. I think they are incredible creatures. I don't recommend you finding that out the way that I found it out, but they are just simply amazing creatures. I think if if you are questioning how you feel about sharks, go swimming with sharks obviously with professional healthier I've done that
since the attack. Best experience of my life, like seeing them in the ocean just glide effortlessly through the water. That I think you when you can start to appreciate this creature that's been developed over three hundred and fifty million years, it's it's an incredible thing that we are kind of lucky to be able to share the planet with.
And I think, you know, there's there's probably people that can hear me say that and still say I'd want the shark killed no matter what, Like it took something from me, and I want to take that.
I want to take something from it.
But at the end of the day, like the the menta that I've kind of lived by since the attack is that it's not about what happens to you. It's not about sharktack, it's not about any of that. Like what truly matters is how you respond, because that's where pride lives. And I think if that pride can come in the form of a recovery that you put everything into, when you achieve your goals and you can look back with and know that you're stronger because of it, and
you can overcome anything. That's one part of pride, But I think the other part of pride is looking at the type of human that you can be in a situation like that, and if you can show some sort of humility and grace knowing that it would be so easy to turn the other way. I think that's something I can I know, regardless of anything else I do in my life, I can look back and be proud that that's a decision that I made and no one can say anything about it that can change my mind.
Bret, absolutely love that, mate. Listen, keep up the positivity. You're a good man and it's a contagious mate. So thank you so much for coming on.
Thanks for having me.
Cheers, buddy.
Thank you.
To find out more about Brett, head to his website Brettcanelin dot com or check out his documentary Attacking Life. I'll link the details in the show notes. Thanks for listening to this episode of Headgame. If you enjoyed it, I'd love if you could leave me a review. I'm Att Middleton. Catch you in the next episode.