Surfer encouraged to get back in water
| • | Bethany 'bombarded' by well-wishers |
By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Big Island Bureau
HILO, Hawai'i — For Hokuanu Aki, who lost his left leg in a shark attack while body boarding off Kaua'i last year, the most effective remedy has been the ocean. His advice to surfer Bethany Hamilton, the 13-year-old Kaua'i girl who lost her left arm in a similar attack Friday, is to get back in the water as soon as possible.
Kevin Dayton • The Honolulu Advertiser
"It gets your mind off everything else," he said. "The water can make you feel whole again. It's something at least that you can do just as good as other people, or even better."
More than a year after losing his left leg in a shark attack at Brennecke Beach on Kaua'i, Hokuanu Aki spends his days back in the water at Honoli'i on the Big Island. He says returning to the ocean makes him feel whole again.
Aki, 19, offered encouragement to Bethany yesterday while sitting on the shore at Honoli'i Beach Park, where he had just spent several hours body boarding in 3- to 4-foot waves off the point. He had yet to retrieve his crutches, which he had left propped against a bright-orange lifeguard stand.
Aki said he is absolutely certain Bethany will ride the waves again.
"She's going to find a way," he said.
Bethany, a talented surfer who was considering turning pro, was attacked Friday by a 14-foot tiger shark as she paddled her surfboard in five feet of water at the portion of the Tunnels reef off Ha'ena known as West Reef.
Aki, a 2002 Kaua'i High School graduate who is familiar with Bethany from living on the Garden Isle, said he was impressed with her skill. He called her "the little ripper," with a nod of respect.
"As soon as I heard it, I was at home early turning on the TV, buying newspapers," he said. "I can imagine how hard it must have been.
"I was just thinking how young she is, and this kind of thing had to happen to her. But the main thing is, she's alive."
Aki's own ordeal began March 25, 2002, while body boarding at Brennecke's Beach in Po'ipu. A shark grabbed him by the left ankle and took him underwater for about a minute. Aki was finally able to jam his fingers into the shark's eye, and the predator released him.
He lost his left foot and part of his calf, and doctors later had to amputate his left leg above the knee.
Aki said he struggled with "mental stuff" after he was released from the hospital, but he never got depressed. "I'd be sad for maybe 10, 15 minutes, and then it would go away," he said.
"Just tell her to stay strong," he said of Bethany. "It's gonna be hard; every day is hard, for me, too. Just find things that will keep yourself busy. Don't give up surfing. You'll find a away. She still can be a champion. She still is a champion, no matter what.
"We're experiencing some things that some people will never experience, but I guess there's a reason for everything."
Aki said the hardest days for him were not spent in the hospital, but when he first arrived home and began to discover what he could not do, or had to learn to do differently.
"I know her life's going to change a lot from how it used to be," he said. "A lot of things she's going to find that are hard to do, some things that she can't do, but it's not too bad."
Aki said his family and friends helped to get him through, as well as acquaintances who went out of their way to tell him how pleased they were to see him again after his recovery.
He returned to the water as soon as his stitches healed, he said. Learning to stand up on one leg on a surfboard was a challenge, but Aki found a way, practicing on small sets and moving on to bigger waves. "It's pretty easy longboarding," he said.
Aki moved with his family to the Big Island in December, and found the change difficult at first because he left his friends behind. Since then, he has become part of the scene at Honoli'i, where all the locals know one another.
He also plays guitar, bass, drums and 'ukulele, visiting with friends to make music, or jamming with people who stop by.
For the moment, Aki's life revolves around the ocean. He hangs out at the beach most days, and plans to enroll at Hawai'i Community College in Hilo next semester. He then hopes to transfer to Leeward Community College on O'ahu for the music program there.
And he surfs, "all the time, whenever there's waves," he said, leaning back on the shoreline grass at Honoli'i, a couple miles north of Hilo town, and watching dozens of fellow surfers work the swells.
"It's just something I've been doing already for a long time, so I can't stop," he said. He paused, and added with a grin, "It does get hot all the time, so got to cool off."
Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 935-3916.
