“I DON’T think you have an eye” was one of the first things young Bawley Point surfer Jed Garkut heard before he was able to make his way to shore after a freak surfing accident.

The prognosis for Mr Garkut may not be good, but he is optimistic and full of faith for a complete recovery.

Sixteen-year-old Jed was surfing with friends a few weeks ago when disaster struck.

Jed’s fin came away from his board and sliced through his left eye, smashing his eye socket and cutting his eyelid vertically in two.

“I was amazed I didn’t freak out,” he said after returning from a two-week stint in the Prince of Wales Hospital.

“I knew I had to get out of the water, so climbed onto my board and started paddling toward shore, calling out to my mates Ryan Welsh and Dan Healey.

“Ryan didn’t help much – he took one look at me and spun away.

“He told me he couldn’t look at me or he would spew.

“And then he said, ‘I don’t think you have an eye.’

“I saw blood streaming down my face and Ryan and Dan ran to get help from Ryan’s dad Chris, who lives across the road from Narrawallee Beach,” he explained.

Jed recalls how the tea towel Chris used to hold his eye in place on the way to the hospital felt as if it was placed on the eyeball itself.

“The scariest moment was when I saw my reflection in the car window,” the young surfer shuddered.

“I didn’t even look like me.”

Jed was transported to Prince of Wales hospital by ambulance from Milton Hospital and underwent a series of operations on his eye socket, under and above his eye and upon his eyelid.

The stitches have been removed and it now a matter of simply waiting, and praying, for the happy-go-lucky young man that has taken all this in his stride.

“I will have to massage around my eye and they reckon it will take a few months before I can control the muscles in my eyelid and be able to open my eye,” Jed said.

“The doctors don’t think I will get my sight back, but I feel very confident I will be fine.”

He said he couldn’t wait to get back in the water.