Hi there...for those who had head of the young New Zealander who got dumped at Dreamland while surfing, and broke his neck, here is a news story in the national paper today saying what has happened to him since.
Headline: An unlucky break... then a lucky one in the movies
22 January 2006
By MATHEW LOH HO-SANG
After filming of King Kong ended last year on-set builder Johnny Bourke went surfing in Asia.
Five days later he was floating out to sea, paralysed and preparing to die, after breaking his neck on Bali's Dreamland beach break.
"It was a good five days," laughs Bourke who retains his humour and confidence. "But I could have done with a few more weeks."
Seven months on, after a stint in Burwood Hospital's spinal unit, 22-year-old Bourke has returned home to the West Coast where, thanks to Peter Jackson's support, he will continue his career in the movie business.
A quadriplegic - rehabilitation has brought him limited movement in his left arm - Bourke won't be returning to his old job, building and fabricating metal. But after working on the planes featured in King Kong, he remains part of the Jackson team and will be retrained in computer aided design.
The promise of "creative stimulation" has him buzzing.
"Peter Jackson and everyone at Wingnut have been really supportive.
"Peter even flew me up to Wellington from Burwood to visit people at work and to talk about opportunities for me in the future. There's potential with CAD and I'll be training using voice-activated software. It will be excellent to get back to work... I don't want to sit around like a cabbage."
Vegetating is not Bourke's style.
Before his accident he was playing guitar with his dad in the Dellburgoes band, surfing every wave he could, and working long hours on King Kong.
Then on a calm June afternoon in Bali, "I bust my neck on a beach break. After surfing reefs all week, a beach break... it sucked.
"I fell off head first and bang. I heard a ringing sound and then, like a plug being pulled out, I was paralysed. It was so fast it was freaky, just seconds."
Left drifting out to sea, Bourke thought of his brother Callum, who drowned at Golden Bay on New Year's Day, 2002 when he was 15. "I was thinking 'here I come bro, here I come'. But then I felt him telling me it wasn't time."
Bourke was rescued by a fellow surfer who was also a doctor.
"A Californian doctor got me out and made sure I wasn't moved. I stayed on the beach for hours and the boys had to build a trench around me with surfboard walls to keep the tide from coming in and drowning me."
He was taken to Denpasar and then to Singapore where he spent several weeks stabilising in hospital before flying home to New Zealand.
Now back in Greymouth, with his girlfriend Elena Tennant, other friends and family, and only metres from his beloved Tasman Sea, Bourke is "stoked to be chilling at home".
"What happened to me wasn't pretty. It was a life-changing experience, like being flipped upside down. But I still live in hope of walking one day - scientists are working on stem cells as we speak."