Twenty-one years after a fork lift accident severed his right leg from the knee down, Grover Beach resident and amputee surfer Rodney Roller is passing the “stoke” of riding waves to other injured surfers.

Roller is part of a team of volunteers on hand this week to guide the veterans from Brooke Army Medical Institute into the cold waters on the south side of Pismo Pier.

“I want them to feel proud for liberating a county, and I feel that way,” Roller said. “I'm on their side. I not only support them, I agree with them.”

A lifelong surfer and below-the-knee amputee at age 18, Roller said he moved to Grover Beach in 1997 after 13 years of residence in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. - and not one day of surfing since his accident.

The former steel fabrication company forklift operator - and now a surf instructor in Pismo Beach - took to the water once he returned to California, eventually progressing to competitive surfing.

The 39-year-old Roller is the 2003 U.S. Amateur Surfing and Western Region Federation champion; he has competed in numerous surfing events in the prosthetics division from Santa Cruz to Oceanside.

This week's event marks the second surf clinic sponsored, in part, by the Amputee Surfers Alliance, also known as Ampsurf, a group Roller helped found with other local amputee surfers.

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Roller said he has more time now to dedicate to getting others out into the water.

“I got burned out on it,” Roller said of leaving the competitive scene in 2005.

Ampsurf's focus is to get amputees out into the water - surfing, surf kayaking, body boarding or just plain being out in the waves, he said.

For Roller, the decision to cruise his custom-made, airbrushed, and resin-art-laden Pat Flecky longboard without the pressure of heats and aggressive head-to-head wave jockeying during competition, taking a more casual surfing approach at Pismo Pier, “was a no-brainer,” he said.

He's equipped with a “surf foot” prosthesis specially made for him by North County Prosthetics, with a neoprene-rubber sole on the bottom for grip that he constantly has to replace because of wear and tear, he said.

A full deck of sticky foot grip is pasted atop his surfboard for added traction, he said.

Roller said he always contended he would never become a “sponger,” or body boarder, and that surfing was his mainstay.

With a past marked by shortboards ranging in height from about seven feet and shorter, Roller now rides longboards and “fish” shapes with higher volume and greater stability.

“They're a little bit more forgiving for me than the shorter boards,” Roller said.

Nothing stops him from pursuing the passion he had dedicated so much time to in the past - not cold water, great white sharks or his tragic accident.

Sharing the sport with others - while being optimistic about it - can help lead to recovery, Roller said.

“I can still hang five,” Roller said. “The stoke never dies.”

Josh Petray can be reached at 489-4206, Ext. 5015, or jpetray@santamariatimes.com.

Aug. 17, 2006