Mark Richardson reveals horrifying ordeal in Bali

Aussie surfing legend Mark Richardson has revealed how close he came to death during a horrifying ordeal in Bali. FULL DETAILS

Aussie surfing legend Mark Richardson has revealed how close he came to death during a horrifying ordeal in Bali.

The Gold Coast local was flown from Bali to Darwin in a critical condition last September.

On Tuesday the surfing identity told the Bulletin he was just hours away from death.

“It got pretty grim there for a while,” he said.

“I was pretty much living day by day, then hour by hour.”

Richardson spent 10 days in a Bali hospital where he survived off the generous blood donations from the local surfing community – owing it to them for his survival.

Mark Richardson critically ill in hospital. Picture: Supplied

“The doctors couldn’t really work out what was going on,” he said.

“I was a bit scared to let them operate on me so we were just in a bit of a roundabout where they were giving me blood and it was coming out of me because it was leaking into my bowel.”

The brother-in-law of former world champion Joel Parkinson and coach of World Surf League stars said he had a hole in one of his arteries caused by two “Indo-parasites” that had attacked an ulcer.

Bali’s Siloam Hospital refused to take international blood donations and a decision was made to evacuate him.

Richardson was eventually medevaced back to Australia in what he said was a race against time.

“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.

“I remember the moment my good friend got off the phone to the people back here in Australia and said LifeFlight was coming.

“The guy at LifeFlight said I wouldn’t have made it through the night. When I was on the plane coming home I was out of it – I woke up and could hear the jet engines and I thought, ‘thank God I’m going back to Australia’.”

A critically ill Mark Richardson laying on a stretcher on the Bali tarmac. Picture: Supplied

Richardson spent more than three weeks in a Darwin hospital undergoing multiple life saving surgeries.

Now the Gold Coast-based surf legend said it’s been a slow but steady road to recovery.

“I’m feeling much better now,” he said.

“It’s taken a good three months to get the body to start to react but I’m back in the gym doing little bits and pieces and I’m back surfing and coaching – as soon as I got back on the beach with the people I coach I felt like I was back home and that really helped me mentally to start to heal much faster.”

Unsure if his body will ever recover 100 per cent, Richardson said he was just grateful to be alive and at what he says is 95 per cent recovered with a “totally different outlook” on life.

“My body was stripped down to the bare essentials,” he said.

“Organs were shutting down, they were relying on other parts of my body to replenish them – it took a bit of a beating.

Aussie surf legend Mark Richardson says he’s grateful to be alive after his brush with death in Bali. Picture: Ashleigh Jansen

“I’m hopeful I can get back to 100 per cent, but 95 per cent, that’s pretty good.”

The surfing legend said his life had forever changed, saying he now lived by the rule to “not sweat the small stuff” – while determined to help spread the message of blood donations during National Blood Donor Week.

“You don’t realise how lucky we are and how lucky we are in Australia,” he said.

“At the moment stocks here are pretty low – that’s why I’m here supporting it.”

Originally published as Mark Richardson reveals horrifying ordeal in Bali