“It blew me away,” Davis said. “I feel that life is precious.”
Thomas’ tribulations have made JunK and three other local bands want do something to help him. The bands will take the stage Sunday to raise money for Thomas’ physical therapy.
“Jay is the nicest guy you’ll ever meet,” said Julia JunK, the band’s drummer. “He deserves a full recovery and if we can help him in anyway, we’ll do it.”
Thomas, a Costa Mesa resident, said he was surfing on the south side of the pier in March when an accident left him with a spinal cord injury that paralyzed from the chest down. Only about 15 minutes after paddling out, Thomas was riding a wave when he realized he was about to collide with another surfer paddling out.
Thomas jumped off his board, head first into the water to avoid hitting the other surfer. The water was shallow, and he hit his head and broke his neck, Thomas said. Floating in the water and unable to breathe, Thomas said he was later told a fellow surfer, who was a Huntington Beach firefighter, saw the accident and got him out of the water.
“Whoever the fireman was ... he basically saved my life,” Thomas said.
In the hospital doctors decided he had an incomplete spinal cord injury and might be able to made a recovery, but no one knows for sure the extent of recovery that is possible, he said.
“You kind of have to accept the position you are in, but still hold on to some kind of hope that a recovery can by made,” Thomas said.
Thomas is doing rehabilitation in Brea and Long Beach, and moved up to Placentia to be closer to his physical therapy.
Thomas said his insurance covered about 12 sessions and each session after is about $100.
His friends have put events to help him pay for the physical therapy.
“It’s hard to find the words,” he said. “You can’t say thank you enough.”
