The accident instantly paralyzed him. Jeremy Ross-Duggan was drowning when Schmidt pulled him out of the water and onto the beach. Lifeguards and paramedics responded quickly and took Ross-Duggan by ambulance to nearby Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian.
There, he learned he had suffered damage to his spinal cord.
"I've always been a nutty, diver-daredevil freak, so this was not even a risk," Jeremy Ross-Duggan said from his hospital bed Saturday.
For Jeremy Ross-Duggan and his family, the accident had a surreal element of familiarity.
Jeremy Ross-Duggan's brother, John Ross-Duggan, is quadriplegic. He broke his neck and was paralyzed in a car accident 28 years ago.
"I screamed at the doctor over the phone because I thought that they were joking me," said John Ross-Duggan, 50, of his reaction when an emergency room doctor told him of his brother's accident.
Minutes later, when John Ross-Duggan saw his brother in the hospital, he knew it was real.
"There he was -- couldn't move anything," John Ross-Duggan said.
Jeremy Ross-Duggan, John Ross-Duggan and their sister Robin Ross-Duggan are self-described "old Newport salt" -- locals who have traveled the globe, but always call Newport their home.
A police report taken at the accident scene originally identified Jeremy Ross-Duggan as being from Ventura.
Jeremy Ross-Duggan, now 43, attended Newport Elementary School and Newport Harbor High School, before moving to London to finish his high school education.
In London, he was adopted by his stepfather, and he took the name Jeremy Henderson, the name many of his friends know him by.
Jeremy and John Ross-Duggan grew up surfing together. They remember sneaking into Trestles and running across the railroad tracks when they were kids.
