The Day I Broke My Neck Part 2: A Salty Soul and Broken Bones

The Day I Broke My Neck – Part 2

If you're just tuning in: This is Part 2 of my story about the day I broke my neck. I was a commercial fisherman off the Northeast coast until one April morning changed everything.
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The day started like any other.

I woke up in my shoebox-sized apartment. When I say small, I mean tiny. You couldn’t stand up in most of it—you had to crouch. The ceiling was slanted, so only the center of the room was fair game for standing, but I didn’t mind. I’d run the shower first thing in the morning—partially to bathe, partially to heat the whole place. After a few minutes, it would be toasty. Even a little steamy. I loved that. A fringe benefit of its size—I could turn my entire apartment into a steam room.

I really liked that little apartment. It was cozy. I had a mattress tucked under the low part of the ceiling, almost like a bunk on a boat. It felt safe. Familiar. And the lack of square footage afforded me the luxury to spend money on the things I cared about.

Looking back, I’m reminded of how free I was. How strong I felt. I had nothing tying me down—no girlfriend, no kids. I liked traveling, surfing, diving. I was kind of a dude. And I was dead set on seeing the world—and actually making progress.

After showering, I headed down the stairs and cut across my landlord’s lawn toward my truck. It was a Toyota Tacoma—a single cab with a bench seat, no power windows, and a stick shift. The four-cylinder engine made it super light. It was perfect for driving on the beach. It could also tow my bay boat, which I used whenever I wasn’t working on the ocean.

As I opened the door, I noticed rain droplets on the window—it had stormed the night before. The day was cold, a bit moody, and I felt groggy. My body hurt. The tendinitis in my arms was flaring up, and I figured a polar plunge in the cold April water would clear my head and calm my pain.

Before we go any further, I need to give you a little context to truly understand my state of mind that day.

I wasn’t always as free as I felt in that moment. When I first started commercial fishing, I had a wicked drinking problem and often found myself doing drugs—almost always against my better judgment. I had no self-control. I didn’t like myself. Fishing started as an escape—from my life, from my mind, from who I was becoming.

I had no tools for dealing with my emotions or thoughts, so I did what many people do—I numbed out. For a few years, I was trapped in a cycle: get off the boat, get drunk, do drugs, be wild, blow all my money. Then I’d crawl back onto a boat for what we called “seahab.”

Any boat worth its salt had one rule: no drinking, no drugs. Break that rule and you run the risk of being seriously hurt or killed—not to mention kicked off for your own stupidity. I loved that rule. It was perfect for me. By the time my feet hit the deck again, I was so sick of my habits—and of myself—that all I wanted to do was clear my mind and get straight.

But as I got older, my body couldn’t keep up with what I was putting it through. At the suggestion of an ex-girlfriend, I eventually ended up in recovery.

At first, I thought it was a death sentence. How am I going to live like this?

But recovery turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. It gave me the tools I needed to stay alive. It gave me community. Friends. Purpose. Structure. It reframed the negative thoughts. It shined light into the darkness that had ruled my life—and pointed me toward something better.

So why am I telling you this?

Because on the morning I broke my neck, I picked up my sponsor, Jerome.

He’s a French artist with a big, gregarious personality. I’ve always admired his uncanny ability to make wild ideas come to life—whether it’s selling a massive collage of Marilyn Monroe made from dozens of tiny Marilyn Monroes, or opening a restaurant in a foreign country. Somehow, he always pulls it off.

He’s part brother, part father figure—someone who shows up at the right moments, grounded and inspiring all at once. He’s still my sponsor to this day. He’s the one who helped me get back on track, and even encouraged me to write this.

It was a little spontaneous—I said, “Let’s meet up and go for a swim.” At the time, I was living at Big Fresh Pond in Southampton, and he was over at Southampton Shores. Both places were just minutes from North Sea Harbor and Towd Point—the scene of the incident.

Jerome hopped in my truck and we cruised down the road toward the point. We crossed over the bridge at Davis Creek, and I could see just how stormy the harbor looked. The wind whipped through the oak trees, shaking the fresh spring buds at the tips of their branches. As we drove, the sky opened up and a full moon appeared—one of those rare, surreal moments when you can see celestial bodies in broad daylight.

As we approached the beach, I grabbed the stick, found neutral, then threw the truck into four-wheel drive. I pushed the gear into first and eased on the gas. The truck tumbled over the thick tire tracks on the sand as we navigated down toward the point.

When we got there, I decided to do something I’d regret for the rest of my life: I backed the truck up so I could dive in off the tailgate. I thought it would be a little more exciting.

I’d taken my boat in and out of North Sea Harbor countless times during scallop season, and I was confident I knew the channel and water depth like the back of my hand. It was also a full moon tide. The harbor was overflowing. Jerome and I took turns jumping in—though he stuck to the shoreline and filmed me instead.

I dove in six or seven times. I was cold. Fatigued. But my tireless, salty soul made me say:

“Hey man, before we head back, let me just jump in one more time.”