Avalon Surf Life Saver Mark Head defies the odds after a life-changing accident
Avalon’s Mark Head won the 2026 Surf Life Saving Sydney Northern Beaches Award of Excellence for Patrol Member of the Year.
“To be honest, I’m a little embarrassed,” Mark Head tells PL. “Because it’s a bit hard to be Patrol Member of the Year when I didn’t even put my big toe in the water.”
“I was very excited to be nominated but part of me was scared about winning because I thought, they’d see a guy in a wheelchair and think, ‘how did this guy get Patrol Member of the Year and he’s in a wheelchair? How’s that possible?’”
At Avalon Beach on 16 September, 2022, Mark’s life changed in an instant. “I was out on a rescue board with about half dozen of my friends,” he recalls. “It was a Friday and the patrols were starting the next day for the summer and we decided to go for a nice paddle.
“I caught a wave and flipped the board over the back of the wave and in this freak occurrence the board hit the lip of the wave and came back and hit me in the head. It snapped my C3, C4 and C5.”
Mark lost consciousness and sank to the bottom. Other lifeguards were alerted by someone on the headland, who had been filming the waves. Mark had been under for eight minutes. He had stopped breathing. His heart had stopped.
“I was dead at the time,” says Mark. “They did 45 minutes CPR, and paramedics worked on me. They said, ‘This guy’s not going to make it.’” However, the paramedics continued CPR on the way to Royal North Shore Hospital. Ninety minutes had passed by then before Mark was put on a life support machine.
Mark’s father was told there was nothing they could for him, and if Mark did wake up, he could be brain damaged. “But Dad said, ‘no, no, no, I don’t accept that,’” Mark recalls. “So, they kept me there for a week or 10 days. I woke up and had some short-term memory loss, and discovered I’d broken my neck.”
Mark, 60, is now a quadriplegic. He overcame many hurdles, which included spending eight months in hospital, nine months in rehab and time in a nursing home while his place was modified. Mark returned to patrol duties for the 2025/26 season. Even though he can’t get in the water, he can operate a radio, and gets around in a beach wheelchair buggy.
“The surf club said, ’there’s no reason you can’t come down and do patrols and operate the radio,’ so I joined my old patrol this year,” says Mark. “I spend most weekends on the beach, so I’m actually in two patrols.”
Mark adapted his role to serve as the core communications and radio operator for two separate patrols: Patrol 3 (his former squad) and Patrol 9 (a newly formed cohort of young Bronze Medallion lifesavers). He has also taken charge of the radio communications training modules.
“At the end of the day, if we need emergency assistance from police or ambulance or surf rescue, somebody’s got to be there on the radio and communicate what’s considered vital information,” explains Mark. “It’s not as simple as making a phone call because in emergency rescue there is vital information you need to convey in the shortest amount of time in a phone call or a radio message. You need to know what information they need straight away and convey that so that they can get the services there.”
Mark joined Avalon Nippers at 15, and has been a Surf Life Saving member for over 40 years. His dad, Bob Head, 85, is a lifetime member and is still involved in the surf club, while Mark’s daughter was also an Avalon Nipper.
“Avalon has saved myself and my family,” says Mark “The surf club and the community didn’t just rally around me, they rallied around our whole family. And that hasn’t stopped, the support is ongoing.”
With ongoing physical therapy, he is determined to walk again. “While the doctors might disagree, I see this wheelchair as a temporary thing,” Mark says. “I’m determined to get out of it one way or another.”