Marin resident fundraises for spinal cord injury research years after surfing accident
Ben Herrick is still not fully aware of what happened the morning of July 3, 2021, when he set off alone to surf some small waves at Newport Beach. This wasn’t out of the ordinary for Herrick, who at the time had been surfing around 20 years and spent years living no further than a couple blocks from a beach.
His wife, Amy, who had dropped him off and stopped to get coffee and breakfast, got a call not too long after that he’d been in a surfing accident. He ended up sustaining a spinal cord injury, shattering his C5 and C6 vertebrae. That day left a lot of unanswered questions about what recovery and the future might look like for him.
“We are grateful for the miracles that happened that day, the people who stepped up for us, the family we have around us and the progress I continue to make on my recovery,” said Herrick, acknowledging everyone from people who wrote supportive messages and dropped off meals to his brother, a neurosurgeon who flew in at a moment’s notice to help with decisions regarding surgery (including who should do the operation), to his wife, his rock throughout the process, caring for both him and their two young children at the time.
“I didn’t appreciate the real power of a community until I needed one,” he said. “All of those things coming in at the same time create a special energy that lifts you up, gets you out of bed and motivates you to keep going. Be an integral part of your community, particularly when people might need some help.”
Herrick, who played sports growing up, was no stranger to rehabbing his body. But this time, he began at ground zero, he said. He began pushing himself in physical therapy multiple days a week, first using a pulley to lift up his left arm, which had mobility issues, and then doing pushups on his knees when he worked up the strength. As time went on, he began to recover physically.
“They said it would take a year or more to surf again and two years to fully recover. I was back in the water nine months later. But it took me more than four years to feel comfortable sharing my story and to fulfill the promise I made to myself during my recovery — help those who did not have the same outcome as me,” he said.
Earlier this month, the Kentfield resident made good on that promise and organized the Brave the Breakers Polar Plunge to raise money for the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, a cause close to his heart, which is dedicated to curing spinal cord injury by advancing research and improving the quality of life for individuals and families impacted by paralysis. The late actor and activist Christopher Reeve was paralyzed in a near-fatal horse riding accident in 1995 and died nine years later.
“Given my love for the ocean and how this accident happened, I wanted to do something related to the water. It took a lot for me to brave the breakers by getting back in the water again, and this seemed like a fitting name for a polar plunge,” Herrick said.
“I was very fortunate with the resources I had and some extraordinary luck after my accident, and other people who endure a spinal cord injury may not have the same resources or outcomes. There is so much more to a spinal cord injury than the physical component. The mental recovery is just as hard, if not harder. People like myself are labeled as ‘recovered’ and those who have a different outcome fight little battles every day,” said Herrick, acknowledging his daily pain, mental struggles and survivor’s guilt about being able to walk when others in his position can’t.
So far, he has raised more than $37,000. The campaign will run for the foreseeable future at give.reeve.org/campaign/753461/donate.
“Christopher Reeve said: ‘You can say either the universe is totally random and it’s just molecules colliding all the time and it’s totally chaos, and our job is to make sense of chaos. Or you can say sometimes things happen for a reason, and your job is to discover the reason,’” Herrick told the crowd at the event on Jan. 4 at the beach near Crissy Field in San Francisco. “It wasn’t until I hit the button on this fundraiser and just 24 hours into this polar plunge idea that I discovered my reason. I thought this event was going to close out a chapter in my life. But instead it just started a new one.”
For Herrick, the ocean has always been a special place for him. Growing up in the East Bay, he and his family would travel down to Santa Cruz a few weekends a year. It wasn’t long before Herrick went from body surfing to surfing on a board, a passion of his he learned with his cousin.
For the first few months after his accident, with mobility issues with his left arm, he didn’t know if he’d be able to surf again and if he wanted to if he could.
“During my recovery, I realized I needed this outlet I’d had for so many years,” he said. “I also thought about what I’d want my kids to do in this situation and what they might think about my accident later in life. The physical and mental challenge of surfing again was enormous. I was strong enough to physically surf again about nine months after my accident. I was scared but motivated to get the ‘first surf’ behind me. So I chose San Diego with my cousin to begin again.
“I thought physically getting back on the horse would put it all behind me. I couldn’t have been more wrong. There were many challenging moments in the parking lot before and after sessions. Conquering Ocean Beach was the real test to get back into surfing, and it took about three years to really feel comfortable again.”
Every July 3, the father of four marks the anniversary of the accident with his loved ones. That day was the beginning of an unexpected journey, and now he ventures down another, thanks to this fundraiser and what it has brought up for him.