Aussie surfing legend Mark ‘Richo’ Richardson has opened up on the harrowing ordeal which almost ended his life while holidaying in Bali.
He was rushed into the intensive care unit at the Siloam hospital in Kuta on the Indonesian island last September, following an infection and serious blood loss.
The four-time Australian Surfing Championship winner suffered internal bleeding after he contracted an infection.
His condition deteriorated rapidly as friends and family launched a public appeal for urgent blood donations of Type A, so that he could receive much needed transfusions.
Surfing legend Mark Richardson (pictured in hospital) has revealed how he almost died in Bali last year after he contracted an infection while he was on holidays
Nine months on, Richardson recalled how he was just hours away from taking his last breath as medical specialists scrambled to save his life.
‘It got pretty grim there for a while,’ he told the Gold Coast Bulletin.
‘I was pretty much living day by day, then hour by hour.
‘The doctors couldn’t really work out what was going on.’
The World Surf League coach spent 10 days in hospital as doctors tried to repair a hole that had opened up in one of his arteries.
It was caused by insects that managed to get into his body and attack an ulcer, which are sores that appear on the lining of a stomach.
His vital organs began shutting down and relied on other parts of his body to replenish them.
The four-time Australian Surfing Championships winner (pictured) feared the worst as doctors scrambled to fix a hole that opened up in one of his arteries
Richardson was in a critical condition when he was medically evacuated from Bali to Darwin, after the Siloam hospital refused to take blood donations from overseas.
‘They ran out of blood in Bali and there was a 12-hour window where I didn’t get any blood and I was right on death’s door,’ he said.
Paramedics from LifeFlight, an air medical service that flew Richardson back to Australia for emergency treatment feared he would not make it through the flight.
Richardson spent three weeks at a hospital in Darwin where he underwent multiple surgeries before returning home on the Gold Coast.
After a slow and steady road to recovery, he’s now back in the gym.
Richardson has also returned to coaching, which he attributed to helping him recover from the unimaginable ordeal.
Mr Richardson (pictured) had to be medically evacuated after the Siloam hospital ran out of blood and refused to take blood donations from overseas
He remains unsure whether he will ever return to 100 per cent health.
But Richardson is grateful to be alive and said that he owed his life to the generous blood donations made by members of the local surfing community, who rushed to help save his life.
A GoFundMe page set up at the time raised more than $46,000 to help cover the costs of Richardson’s medical treatment and flight home.
Richardson is a renowned figure in Australian surfing having won a gold medal in the Masters Division in the ISA World Masters Surfing Championships in 2011.
After his successful surfing career, he became a coach and is a mentor to several rising stars including Aussies Liam O’Brien, Callum Robson and Isabella Nichols.
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