Losing my leg has elevated my life, says world champion surfer

Four-time world champion adaptive surfer Llywelyn Williams says losing his leg as a teenager elevated his life.

Surfing played a pivotal role in his recovery and in the years since losing a leg after being hit by a car in 2011.

It had been a passion of the then 16-year-old prior to the accident - and it was not going to stop him despite being severely injured while out skateboarding.

In fact, he recalled coming around from a coma in hospital amid a dream that a surfboard came between him and a bright light "like you see in the movies".

"It wasn't my time," said Williams, from Abersoch, Gwynedd.

A friend asked him what he wanted to do while he lay in his hospital bed; he wanted to get back in the water - and go surfing in Australia.

"The rehab was to drive myself to get back into the ocean," said Williams, known as Sponge by friends.

"As soon as I got back in the ocean, I felt like I was born again.

"When the board and you connect perfect on the wave, it just feels like you're flying."

His mother, Eirian Parry, described the "beautiful moment" his friends carried him into the sea as he continued his recovery following the amputation.

But she still recalled with visible emotion the time she and Williams' father faced up to a "nightmare" - when doctors asked them to sign a consent form to amputate their son's right leg.

David Williams told BBC documentary Our Lives: Beyond the Waves it was the hardest decision of his life "but it was the only way to save" his son's life.

"To think he was nearly dead on the side of the road when the accident happened... to being the world champion," he said.

"Once he got his first wave back, there was no stopping him."

His father can also remember tough times early into his son's recovery, one in which he told him he had to be strong while at a low point, and then took himself off and cried in the room next to his son.

"The way my parents have brought me up is you've just got to get on with it so, yeah, I had one leg and that was it," said Williams.

He works as a digger driver in the family construction business when not surfing.

"I've learned how to do everything with one leg, except to be able to use a wheelbarrow," said Williams with a wry smile.

"When I turned 18 I wheelchaired my way into the kitchen and said we're heading off to Australia.

"We did a year out there travelling around the coast surfing, living in a camper van.

"To be able to go back there now every year for a competition is just brilliant."

In March, he won the 2026 Bright Sky Australian Pro Adaptive Surfing Championship as the kneeling champion and proudly held the Welsh flag aloft on the beach at Byron Bay, New South Wales.

And he was third in the North Shore Prosthetics Hawaiian Surfing Championships in May.

He self funds participation in surfing competitions and has been thankful for his supporters close to home.

Williams has also been lobbying with others for his sport to be included in a future Paralympics Games.

"Surfing has been a huge part of my recovery and the adaptive surfing community has helped me so much," he said.

"Disability for me has elevated my life - anything is possible if you have any kind of disability."