SURFER Pro­file: Timmy Turner

Turner pio­nneered a bunch of breaks in Indone­sia, that were sim­ply too out of the way for any­one to con­fort­ably explore. Stich­ing and mend­ing him­self and his crew’s reef cuts, liv­ing off goats and chick­ens and col­lect­ing rain water. Upon return­ing from Indone­sia in 2005, he was diag­nosed with one of the worse staph infec­tions doc­tors had ever seen, was com­matose for a while and under­went hem­i­craniec­tomy wherein he lost about 75% of his skull. Chances of sur­vival were next to nil (let alone recov­ery), but Timmy not only man­aged to sur­vive but made a full recov­ery. Advised by doc­tors to stay away from the trop­ics as he woulnd’t sur­vive another infec­tion, Timmy went as far away as he could — in the oppo­site direc­tion. He is now film­ing the “sequel” to his acclaimed film “Sec­ond Thoughts” on Canada’s British Colum­bia, to be called “Cold Thoughts”. Although his films are slightly mad /​ manic, I can’t help but be inspired.