It’s telling that Mark Somervell and Brittany Spencer’s first date was a wintery night swim during a storm at Tata Beach in Golden Bay.
“It was raining, dark, thundering and there was lightning, but we both threw ourselves into the water,” recalls Brittany, smiling across at Mark.
“I love exploring and adventure, and doing insane and crazy things, so to meet someone with that same passion for life is amazing,” adds the 22-year-old.
But what made the young Nelson couple’s chilly dip even more daring was the fact Mark waded into the surf with his prosthetic leg – for him, it’s all part of his ethos to not let anything hold him back.
“Life is what you make it,” declares Mark, 24, with his trademark grin. “Instead of sitting around thinking about all the things I can’t do, I’m getting out there and doing it.”
It’s been two years since a horrific motorbike accident on a highway in Los Angeles came close to taking Mark’s life. The Nelson arborist hit gravel on a sweeping bend, sliding into a metal barrier and severing his left leg completely above the knee.
He fractured his back and the handlebars from his motorbike impaled his liver. His right leg had compound fractures in both lower leg bones, and was hanging by skin and tendons.
But in the last six months, Mark has returned to work part-time in a plant nursery and is back behind the wheel of a car.
Meeting Brittany through mutual friends has been a highlight in what has been a long recovery.
“She’s pretty awesome,” he says, looking over at his girlfriend, a journalist and adrenaline junkie who spends weekends surf life saving and racing inflatable rescue boats.
“Brittany is adventurous and fun – and she didn’t bat an eyelid about my leg when we first met.”
“Your prosthetic leg doesn’t faze me in the slightest,” adds Brittany. “Just as long as you can keep up with me!”
Moving to LA was a dream come true for keen surfer Mark. But in August 2015, he was less than six months into his working holiday when he left his Pasadena home to ride his Kawasaki ZX-6 motorbike to buy a new bag.
Still flashing that famous grin in hospital, despite the fight for his limb.
“The last thing I remember was thinking it was a beautiful, hot day and I should take the Angeles Forest Highway, the back road around the canyon,” recalls Mark.
“I woke up two days later going, ‘Um, what just happened?'”
As his parents, church pastors Peter and Francelle Somervell, flew to his bedside, surgeons at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena fought to save Mark’s remaining right leg.
He spent five months in hospital in the US and then had a fresh fight on his hands when his leg became infected not long after he touched down in New Zealand. Mark spent a further two months in Middlemore Hospital before he could return to his family home in Nelson.
Today, his right leg is a patchwork quilt of criss-cross scars, sinewy tendons and distorted muscle. He only has 30% of his right quadricep and because his sciatic nerve was severed, he has little feeling in his foot.
While he’s had the odd low moment, Mark is driven by a determination to make the most out of every day. “It’s sink or swim,” he explains. “Life is what you make it.”
The arborist was flown home to NZ from LA after his horrific motorcycle accident.
Mark was upfront about his prosthetic leg when the couple chatted online before their first date. “He even joked he was like a pirate and just needed a parrot on his shoulder,” says Brittany.
Coincidentally, Brittany’s second cousin, Kenny Hagan, lost his leg in a bike accident in Auckland a few years ago.
“Mark’s leg didn’t faze me – I was more struck by his zest for life,” she admits.
“He’s super, super-energetic and optimistic, and keen to go on adventures and explore.”
Brittany says they have talked at length about the accident and in September this year, they had a visit from US intensive-care nurse Lyn Riley, who worked with the paramedics who picked Mark off the highway. “I got to see all the gory photos and hear a lot more detail,” she says.
And while Mark’s promised his family he won’t be riding a motorbike in the near future, the pair are doing a South Island road trip this summer.
Brittany was unfazed by Mark’s prosthetic leg and enjoyed his joke that he was “like a pirate”.
They’re planning a few hikes and some time at the beach, but Mark’s one regret is that he hasn’t been back in the surf – at least not yet.
He’s on the waiting list for a new prosthetic, the Genium X3, the same one used by the inspiring adaptive surf champion Dr Dani Burt, who also lost her leg in a motorbike accident and is an above-knee amputee.
“Her Instagram page was one of the first Mark ever showed me and he lit up when he said, ‘I’m getting the same leg and I may be able to surf again,'” recalls Brittany.
“Never say never,” asserts Mark. “Just throw yourself into everything and live life to the full.”
