French amputee surfs again in ‘revenge’ on shark

SAINT- JEAN-DE-LUZ, France: After losing his left leg in a shark attack in 2011, avid surfer Eric Dargent wasted little time rueing his misfortune, setting out to get his ‘revenge'.

“Just a few days after the accident I already wanted to get back on a surfboard,” he said.

Dargent, now 39, teamed up with snowboarding amputee Patrice Barattero to invent a prosthetic knee specially adapted to their sports, with the help of a vocational high school and an orthopaedic specialist.

The artificial knee, which is resistant to both sea water and low temperatures, incorporates a hydraulic shock absorber that is used in mountain bikes.

“A lot of things are different, but at the same time there are parallels with an able- bodied person,” Dargent said.

“There's this motivation, this energy, this revenge,” he said.

“I forget about my handicap when I'm in the water.”

With the prosthesis, now marketed as the Easy Ride sports knee by the French company Proteor, Dargent won France's inaugural adaptive surfing championship last year, when he also came in fifth in the world championships, held in California.

It was in February 2011 during a trip to Reunion that Dargent was attacked by a shark.

“My leg was ripped off in a few seconds. I didn't realise it right away,” Dargent said, almost mechanically. “Luckily I wasn't far from shore.”

The mangled leg had to be amputated, leaving only a short stump.

Experts advised Dargent to take up a different sport because the amputation was too high above the knee. But orthopaedic specialist Bertrand Tourret-Couderc, moved by Dargent's tenacity, decided to back him. “For Eric, getting back on a surfboard was as important as being able to walk again,” Tourret- Couderc said. — AFP