Dan Single‘s rebirth: “A year ago I was dead”
A YEAR ago Dan Single, formerly of the cult fashion brand ksubi, was clinging to life after plummeting four storeys from the balcony of a hip Paris hotel. After that disaster and the breakup of his marriage, he seems to be on the way back up.
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A year ago Dan Single, formerly of the cult fashion brand ksubi, was clinging to life after plummeting four storeys
from the balcony of a hip Paris hotel.
Single and his much-admired Aussie model wife, Bambi Northwood-Blyth, had been in the French capital for a couple of months working on a promotional video for their pyjama range when, for reasons that remain unclear, Single tumbled or “somersaulted” from the balcony of graffiti artist Andre Saraiva’s Hotel Grand D’Amour on to the footpath below.
That was March 11, 2017, at which time Saraiva’s elegant hotel was untouched by scandal. There had been only praise and acclaim for the hotel owners and for Northwood-Blyth’s graffiti artist friend, Saraiva, the subject of a series of nudes that hang in his own hotel and sit comfortably alongside a profusion of fleshy pornographic art installations and penis-printed carpet.
Then the hellraiser who calls himself “Dangerous Dan” and who met his ksubi fashion collaborator George Gorrow in a bar fight in LA, plummeted from one of the pretty hotel’s balconies.
While Single would survive the 35m fall, he sustained horrendous physical injuries including
a broken pelvis and hips, shattered legs, internal trauma and a blow to
the head.
Waking from an induced coma eight days later, Single found himself confronted by staggering hospital bills. His response was to conceive a Go Fund Me campaign, “Shit Got Real”, which drew widespread condemnation though little actual cash.
Then “shit” got more real.
French surgeons had bad news for the legendary party boy. There was a chance he might not walk again.
A month later Northwood-Blyth would pack her bikini and leave
the country to meet modelling commitments in Europe. Rumours soon swirled the couple’s relationship was over.
Single maintained his silence until last month — the one-year anniversary of his fall — when he opened like an artery on his social media account confirming the breakup.
“When I fell, my hips and pelvis broke in half and with that our co-dependent relationship broke too,” he wrote. “We were no longer joined at the hip.
“Two people cannot live as one, it’s not healthy. You can try but you’re really living half a life. We both have our journeys to go on now, ones that we couldn’t have gone on together. We are respectful and happy for what each other has got going on, no bad vibes.
“I will love her to the moon and back for eternity … I learnt a lot from her and am so grateful to have shared many adventures with this beautiful girl.”
Northwood-Blyth, 27, responded in a manner befitting Instagram — she liked Single’s post.
Single has emerged from a bitter and hard year with what sounds like new-found maturity and burgeoning spirituality — even, possibly, acceptance.
“A year ago today I was dead,” he posted on March 10. “I had just fallen off a four-storey balcony in Paris. Landed on the road, broke lots of bones in my body, hit my head, DIED. (I) came back to life, was in a coma for eight days.
“I had 10 operations to put this body back together again. Spent the next three months on my back in a hospital in Paris. I was told I might never walk again.”
A pelvic X-ray posted to Instagram shows a heavily reinforced pelvis and the two metal rods inserted into Single’s legs, pinning them to his hips. Another photo, captioned “self-medicating”, shows him injecting himself with what the reader assumes are painkillers.
“I returned home in a wheelchair. Two months later I was slowly getting about on crutches. I knew that if I put my mind to it and worked really hard I could recover and walk again. I’m still doing it, recovering.”
He attributes his recovery to the love and support of family, his son Justice (from a previous relationship with fashion designer Pip Edwards), meditation and the ocean.
“It’s been an incredible journey filled with a lot of love and support, a lot of luck and an extreme amount of hard work to get to where I am today. I decided to take a year off social media, off work and do nothing but concentrate on a recovery of my body, mind and spirit. I feel it’s working, I’m happy, it’s a new life of appreciation and purpose. Not that it wasn’t before, I thought I had the best life in the world.”
He also has advice for those battling with depression: “If you get to a time when you ... think about taking your life, don’t. You are loved, Life is full of ups and downs. This (is) just a down. If you are there it’s *...ing hell … but remember this too shall pass.”
Single has recently returned to his DJ work: “I have so many exciting projects I’m working on. I’ve been blessed with a second chance at life. I’m determined to make the most of it.”