MY MATE MICK
THE life of amateur surfer Barney Miller changed forever when he was left a quadriplegic following a highspeed car crash.
But a text message from friend and three-time world surf champion Mick Fanning willed the 39-year-old to get back on his board and rediscover his passion for the water.
Six years after the 1999 accident, which included a month in intensive care and a six-month rehabilitation stint, Miller had mustered the courage to get back into the surf.
He had overcome the mental anguish attached to relearning not only how to breathe independently but also to use his arms and other basic movements.
“It’s hard to say ‘no’ to Mick when he’s pushing you on a wave. You’ve just got to learn to go,” Miller says.
Fanning and Miller first rode a break together on a lay day during the 2005 Pipeline Masters in Hawaii.
It followed a chance meeting at a surfing contest in Jeffreys Bay, South Africa the same year. A decade later the meeting place was the scene of Fanning’s now infamous tussle with a great white shark.
“(The meeting) was the beginning of actually talking to someone about what I want to get out of life; I want to walk again and do all this stuff, and Mick was the type of guy that said ‘OK if you’re serious about this let’s make it happen’,” Miller says.
When Miller is out for a surf, Fanning who is sometimes there to paddle him out, watches like a proud dad. Miller has come to Bells Beach for the Rip Curl Pro since 2006, and this week he was willing his mate on to win a fifth crown — but it wasn’t to be.
Miller, sponsored by Rip Curl, is a successful surfer in his own right after winning the World Adaptive Surfing Championship late last year.
His friendship with Fanning has seen the pair surf in Tahiti; in front of thousands at the US Open in Huntington; and at California’s Sunset Beach.
Fanning considers Miller among his best friends.
It’s Miller’s genuineness that he’s drawn to.
“You can wake up every now and then and think the world’s against you. But you look at Barney and he’s still smiling and 100 per cent . . . he’s definitely a huge inspiration in my life,” Fanning says.
Miller and Fanning share a friendship spanning more than a decade and it has helped drive each towards their goals.
“We both have each other’s back, we love checking in with each other and seeing how everything is going,” Miller says.
“He’s really shown me what’s possible when you put in hard work.
“He turns tragedy into triumph and that’s something I’ve really learnt from him and I try to live the same way he does. He gives me courage to believe in myself.”
Fanning credits watching Miller in rehabilitation during 2013 for lighting the spark that propelled him to a surfing world title later that year.
He also organised wetsuits for Miller when the idea to get him into the water on a surfboard was floated in 2005.
It is remarkable Miller can ride the waves at all given all the physical and mental torment he’s endured.
He says that when he arrived at the hospital after the accident he was “pretty much dead”.
“They had to jam tubes down my throat so I could breath. I had a tracheotomy and the doctors told me I would never breath by myself, I’d never move my right arm and I’d never walk again. That was the first diagnosis.”
After a week of morphine-induced psychosis, Miller woke with a steely resolve to walk again.
It’s a mark of his grit, will and determination that he continues to tackle surfing head-on.
Miller rides a modified board chest-down with straps and grooves in which he can position his elbows and feet. He needs aides to get him into the path of a wave, but he’s leaned to steer the board using his weight and continues to attempt top turns and floaters.
Miller says a wipeout loosens the joints in his body in a way rehab can’t.
Fanning introduced Miller to his Queensland-based personal trainer Jan Carton in 2009 to sharpen his rehab focus.
She put him into a program of kinesiology-based treatment and a repetitive exercise program.
After meeting Fanning’s trainer, Miller upped his rehab workload, first completing two-month rehab stints in the US between 2009 and 2011, then progressing to six-month stints for about four years.
Fanning was in the room in California at a spinal rehab centre when Miller stood for the first time after his accident.
“To see him walk around and stand next to him at the end of it I was just gobsmacked. I actually went and jumped in the car and starting bawling my eyes out. I’m pretty sure that he’s one of the strongest humans I’ve ever met,” Fanning told 60 Minutes in 2016.
Miller has spent time training using the Project Walk program which is based on completing exercises relating to movements learnt early in life. The movements attempt to re-establish messages within the central nervous system.
Miller can now stand with the aid of parallel bars and takes assisted steps with the help of a trainer.
“I don’t think anyone should be pigeonholed ….by opinion whether it be professional or otherwise,” he says.
Miller spent last year documenting his post-accident journey in a book that includes the effect meeting his now wife, Kada, had on his life.
On Thursday in Torquay, he launched his book The Essence of You and Me.
The book covers Miller’s desire to walk, run, and surf standing up again — only the naive would consider writing him off.
The Essence of You and Me by Barney and Kada Miller will be available from bookstores and online on Tuesday.