Sam is a professional athlete, taking up competitive paracanoeing – placing 13th in the world and two Australian titles. She was also later selected as a member of the Australian Adaptive Surf Team – winning gold for Australia at the 2018, 2020, and 2023 World Para Surf Championships – as you do. Sam’s also an ambassador for Wings For Life, advocating for people with spinal cord injuries and the para-sport community.
Allie from the Missing Perspectives team was lucky enough to head to Byron Bay to spend some time with Sam during the 2025 Australian Para Surfing Titles and BrightSky Australian Pro Adaptive Surf Championships (the first leg of the Association of Adaptive Surfing Professionals World Tour) and talk about her remarkable story – which continues to be written, and evolving.
Over 10 years ago, without any warning, Sam’s life changed overnight during a family holiday in Thailand, when she feel through a rotten balcony railing and fell six metres onto the concrete below. She suffered severe damage to her spinal cord that left her paralysed from the chest down.
If you’re not across Sam’s rehabilitation journey, it might surprise you that a magpie chick played a key role – and ended up seeing a movie made about Sam’s life. During her long rehabilitation process, a little magpie chick entered her life and ended up changing her trajectory. The little magpie, nicknamed Penguin, became Sam’s companion, and saw her bring laughter back into her life and house. The story of Sam and Penguin later became a film Penguin Bloom, with Naomi Watts playing the lead role of Sam.
Sam tells us that she loved working with Naomi and getting to know the actress. “ I remember the first time I met her and I was super nervous ’cause she’s like a movie star and I’m like, just me,” Sam tells Missing Perspectives. “Honestly, she’s super cool. She’s so down to earth and just such a lovely person. It was lovely spending time with her and hanging out and I love that. Telling her to slow it down, like, you know, doing transfers and stuff and getting dressed. I’m like, dude, like switch your tummy off!”
“ When I was told that I wouldn’t walk again, man. I was just like, I was so devastated,” Sam tells Missing Perspectives. “It was like my whole life had come to a complete halt. So yeah, it’s been crazy and it’s really hard to come to terms with it still, even after 12 years, I still don’t accept it. I still wake up sometimes and just go, ‘Oh, come on. Like this isn’t me. Like, it’s not the real me,'” she says. “So yeah, I’ll do anything just to be me again and be able to get up outta bed and, and run down the beach or just do normal things and stand up and have a shower.”
Allie on our team had the best time chatting with Sam and cheering on the incredible athletes and adaptive surfers – and we can’t wait to watch the rest of the World Tour.
Sam will be taking part in the Wings for Life World Run on May 4th to raise money and awareness for spinal cord injury research. Learn here about how you can get involved.
Missing Perspectives was a guest of Red Bull.
