Christiaan Bailey

Christiaan Bailey, nicknamed Otter, is an American professional surfer born on 31 March 1981 in Santa Cruz, California, known as a surf safari guide and as a big wave surfer and skateboarder. He grew up around Santa Cruz and spent part of his childhood in France, attending the American School of Paris. On 23 July 2006 a skateboarding crash at Derby skatepark fractured vertebrae and left him paralyzed from the waist down. In 2007 he and Frank Bauer started the nonprofit Ocean Healing Group, which runs adaptive sports programs in Costa Rica for children with disabilities. He later became captain of USA Surfing, a three time USA National Champion and a seven time medalist at the ISA World Adaptive Surfing Championship, and was the first paralyzed person to win the Western Surfing Association Championships and to surf Mavericks.