A daredevil jetskier seriously injured in a stunt-gone-wrong at the Tauranga Boat Expo got the chance to thank his rescuers last night.
Adrian De Villiers said he would probably not be alive if it was not for the quick-thinking actions of the men who pulled him to safety.
The men met for the second time last night, the first being the moment they pulled Mr De Villiers, unconscious and bleeding, from Tauranga Harbour on October 31.
The accident was still a bit patchy in Mr De Villiers' mind but he knew enough to know he owed his life to those men.
He was attempting a one-foot back flip, a trick he was familiar with, considered the only freestyle jetskier in New Zealand able to do a back flip from flat water. " ... you extend one leg ... so you have one leg holding you in the ski and that foot slipped out too and that's what caused me to lose control and go over the handle bars.
"I remember my foot coming out and thinking it was going wrong ... I remember seeing my ski coming towards me.
"Then them pulling me onto the wharf and seeing the blood pouring out of my head ... I wasn't quite sure what had happened but I knew something went wrong."
Rodney Thomson, of The Adventurer, a fishing, boating and hunting newspaper and Fishing and Adventure television show host Scott Parry were first into the water after the accident.
The men said it was good to see Mr De Villiers alive and well last night after rolling him over in the harbour to see his blue and bleeding face just over a week ago.
The two men managed to hold him above water until Tauranga Bridge Marina manager Tony Arnold came to the rescue with his inflatable boat.
He said Mr De Villiers was a dead weight when they lifted him out of the water.
Mr De Villiers brought along the scans of his fractured skull last night showing the crack stretching along the top of his skull, down the side of his nose and into his eye socket.
But the injuries did not show on the outside, with the 43-year-old wearing a smile, lucky to be alive and keen to get back out on the water.
"I'm not going to be riding for the rest of the year probably, just waiting for the nut [skull] to heal.
"I've done them [flips] heaps. I've got them wrong lots of times too but not to this result ... A helmet will be worn from now on."