While out in the surf, Blake attempted a trick that did not quite go to plan, and he hit his head on a sandbank. He does not remember how he got to the shore but remembers standing up in knee-deep water and seeing blood coming out of his nose.

It was at this point he was struck by another wave and was fading in and out of consciousness. The next thing he remembers is the two surf lifesavers that came up to help him.

“I don’t remember much of the day, but I do remember sitting in the first aid room of the Surf Life Saving club feeling extremely dizzy and vomiting,” he said.

Steve Edgar and Isaac Moloney were the surf lifesavers on morning patrol who were alerted to a young man in distress about 200 metres down the beach. They rushed over to him with their first aid kit.

“It was really big surf that day… Blake was dazed and confused and had blood all over him,” Steve said.

Moving Blake to the first aid room allowed them to stabilise him, reducing the chance of further injury, while also allowing them to assess and treat other injuries he had sustained. They also immediately called for an ambulance and notified SurfCom of the incident.

“When you are faced with a situation like that, you have to act straight away with what is in front of you. We focused on calming Blake down and providing first aid assistance to stabilise his condition until an ambulance arrived,” Steve said.

He was rushed to The Tweed Hospital where they found he had a lot of salt water in his lungs. He was put on oxygen to bring his levels back up before he could have a CT scan.

The scan found that he had fractured the C6 and C7 vertebrae in his neck.

Blake was transferred to the Gold Coast University Hospital where further tests revealed that the fracture was dangerously close to his spinal cord.

“That night I woke up in the middle of the night screaming and couldn’t feel the left side of my body,” Blake said. He was experiencing paralysis.

Doctors performed emergency surgery the very next morning. They found three millimetres of bleeding around his spinal cord and said if they had not done the surgery when they did, he would have been paralysed.

Doctors also believe that if the surf lifesavers had not acted as quickly as they did and handled him as carefully as they did, he could have ended up in a wheelchair.

“The surgeon said they did a great job,” Blake said.

A few months after the incident, Blake got in touch with the Coolangatta Surf Life Saving Club and was invited to attend their presentation night. He was reunited with the surf lifesavers that treated him and shared just how grateful he was for them saving his life and preventing him from becoming paralysed.

“Things can change in the blink of an eye – you never know when you will need a surf lifesaver there to help people.

“They volunteer to be the first response people and they end up saving a life – I want to say thanks for everything they have done.

“I count my lucky stars – it could have been a lot worse than it was,” Blake said.