From spinal AVM diagnosis in a French hospital to first world title in California — what that year actually looked like.
July 2022, France. Kai is on a family surf trip when his legs stop working properly within hours. Emergency surgery follows. The diagnosis is an arteriovenous malformation in his spine — a rare, dangerous bundle of blood vessels that has caused swelling and nerve damage. He flies home to the Gold Coast in a wheelchair.
The work is mostly invisible. Hospital discharges. Outpatient rehab. Hand-cycle work to rebuild aerobic capacity. Trial-and-error board setups in the calm water of Tallebudgera Creek. Conversations with the small group of Australian Prone surfers who'd already figured out how to come back from injury.
Surfing prone — chest on the deck, no fins, paddling with the arms — is a different sport. Wave selection has to change. Take-off technique has to change. Body position changes how a board planes across a wave face. None of it is intuitive on day one.
The first three months I didn't surf well. I just surfed. That was the win.
Confidence came back faster than expected. By early 2023 Kai was committing to bigger waves at Burleigh and starting to draw real lines. The Australian Adaptive Surfing Association invited him to compete at nationals, and shortly afterwards he was selected for the squad heading to the US Adaptive Surfing Championships in California.
Twelve months and a few weeks after surgery, Kai surfed his way through the rounds and won the Unassisted Prone division — his first major world title.