Bondi 9am | Glenn Orgias, post shark attack showing good recovery
Image No. 11968
Blood Bondi 23rd June 2009
On Thursday, 12th February 2009 around 7:50pm, 34 year old Glenn Orgias was attacked by a Great White Shark whilst surfing at Bondi Beach.
He was paddling back to the line up when he was bitten on his left arm. As he pulled his arm back onto his board – blood poured out into the ocean. Glenn got ashore as soon as he could losing copious amounts of blood…luckily many fellow surfers helped him, including a Doctor that applied tourniquets, buying valuable time to get Glenn to hospital – saving his life. Unfortunately Glenn lost his left hand after many operations.
Well today, 4 months down the track…a courageous Glenn Orgias paddled out at Bondi with James Macintosh (who was one of surfers who helped Glenn on the night of his attack). Glenn is having to use a much longer board now until he regains strength and confidence - but he’s still getting his fair share of waves.
“Paddling one handed isn’t easy – especially duck diving can be difficult but I am getting a board made with a special grip that can assist me”
“Balance is also a problem…I keep falling to the left for some reason” said Glenn.
It’s only his third surf since the attack and he’s pretty determined to follow the steps of other shark attack victims such a Bethany Hamilton, who is back in the water, shredding, despite her encounter with a shark.
When in hospital Glenn used the equivalent of 150 donations of blood – now that’s a lot. He wouldn’t be here today if not for the generosity of blood donors.
Glenn’s running in the City to Surf Fun Run – and he’s running on community blood. He wants to support the Australia Red Cross Blood service who need your blood donations – his goal is to raise 5,000 blood donations (not money). If you’d like to pledge blood, please go to runningonblood.com and support this worthy cause. You never know, one day you may need blood as 1 in 3 people do in Australia.
Oh, and the waves are pretty darn good today (clean 3-4ft). ENE swell so hit someone facing that way i.e. Not Bondi. Later::uge
Bondi 9am | Glenn showing his damage to his left arm from the shark
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Bondi, Nov 6th 2009 | Glenn Orgias before his shark attack
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Bondi 9am | Adjusting to paddling with 1 hand
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T-bay 7am | Plenty of waves today...get out there.
Image No. 11969
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Comments
Ms Wen said |
Glenn…youre an absolute inspiration!!!!!! Living life to the fullest!!! Brilliant!! Thank you so much Uge for today’s email! …Wen
)
Simon said |
Good to see Glenn is getting back out there – he definitely seems to have a good attitude to life.
Couldn’t it be possible to have a sort of paddling attachement for his arm to help paddling? Surely there are some practical readers here that could possibly help Glenn out?
Keep up the good work Uge!
taff said |
3-4ft? is that some grom in the last pick then? looks hawge!
good to see you in the water again glen. your a legend mate.
Steve GRaybrook said |
Glen, your a legend and I’m glad your back doing what you love most, surfing.
Your a inspiration to everyone. Steve
Glenn Orgias said |
Hi, thanks for your comments, very kind. I’d just like to publically thank Uge for helping out with our City 2 Surf blood donation campaign. He selflessly gave up his time to help out, and I am so appreciative of his efforts. You take great photo’s mate, and I love your site.
Rob said |
Amazing effort and an inspiration thanks Glen
I was wondering if you could retrofit some sort of hand blade like body surfers sometimes use that might make paddling easier. Might also assist balance when you’re getting up.
Oops, just saw Simon had a similar idea.
Would be a good project for a Uni engineering student.
Uge said |
No problem at all. Always keen to help out. Get back out there Glenn. You’ll be tearing it up in no time.
Andrew said |
OUTSTANDING! What a legend! Good on you for giving back to running on blood and reminding us all what is really important in life.
Thanks Uge for letting us know how Glenn is getting on.
Allan said |
Ballls………Great big Balls, well done mate
Nico said |
Thinking about you a lot! Great to see you back on a board – you are great inspiration to everyone out in the world. The incident actually happened on my second last day in Sydney… – keep your head high, cheers from New York City, Nico (Kim’s former flatmate)