America's Cup sailor Simo de Mari's life changed in the most unimaginable way in March 2019. He tells The Detail about his mission to walk again after a freak accident at Omaha Beach.
Photo: The Detail/Sharon Brettkelly
The living room of Simo de Mari's home in Auckland tells the story of two different times in his life: a huge silver wall hanging with a cartoon picture of a piranha covers one wall, while the furniture in the room is pushed aside to make way for exercise equipment and a wheelchair.
The wall hanging is part of the sail from the America's Cup boat Luna Rossa, on which de Mari sailed. The exercise equipment is what he needs now to rebuild his body after a devastating accident.
Simo and his wife Sonja have just returned home from two weeks in Panama, where he's undergone a second round of radical umbilical cord stem cell treatment.
Today they tell The Detail about the accident in March 2019 that left him a tetraplegic, his mission to walk again and the stem cell treatment that he believes will help him.
Sonja describes her Italian husband as an elite sportsman. He had been part of the core sailing crew for five America's Cup campaigns, mostly for the Italian team.
"His life was his physicality; it was what kept him at the top of an elite sport and was very much part of what made him who he was and defined his identity.
"Daily activities included biking, running, going to the gym, kite sailing, paddle boarding, surfing, skiing - all things Simo loved and excelled at."
All that disappeared when Simo broke his neck while out on his paddle board at Omaha Beach.
He went into hospital in March and didn't come home until August.
The couple describe their reaction to warnings from doctors that he would not walk again.
They also recall the terrifying moments they experienced during his hospital stay, as he battled the shock and effects of his paralysis, and other illnesses.
"After Simo's operation we had to wait to see if he would be able to breathe again on his own," Sonja says.
"He had pipes and tubes hanging out of him when he returned to ICU and one of them assisted his breathing. The nurse warned me that there was a possibility that he would never be able to breathe on his own again, which was frightening to hear, but thankfully this wasn't the case and when he woke up they removed it successfully."
His swallow function was another worry, because the surgeons had to had to push aside his oesophagus - which connects the throat to the stomach - in order to fix the broken bones in his neck, Sonja says.
After they operated, a feeling tube was inserted that stayed in for several weeks.
"There is a little flap in the oesophagus that lets air into your lungs and food and water into your stomach and sometimes that never recovers, for Simo it was a long process to get that swallow function back and the day they removed it felt like such a positive step and small win."
As he started his rehabilitation at the spinal unit, the couple started looking into other treatment that might help him walk again.
They describe how they came across umbilical cord stem cell therapy, the trip to Panama and what has happened since.
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