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January 2005: Geelong Hospital, Australia

Liu never imagined he would find himself back at Geelong Hospital, yet here he was once more. This time, however, he was a visitor, filled with concern for a young woman, unknown to him, who was fortunate to be alive.

The hospital triggered painful memories for him, bringing back the time when, as an eight-year-old boy, his parents had rushed him there after a freak accident in the shallow waters off Portarlington Beach.

After enjoying a light lunch of mortadella and cheese in a crusty roll, Liu, equipped with the new snorkelling gear he had received for Christmas, eagerly dashed into the calm, sheltered water near the family’s beach umbrella, which was pitched on the dry, coarse sand. Meanwhile, his parents, Salvatore and Tina, relaxed in the shade, their toes buried in the cool sand as they sipped ice-cold coffee brewed the night before from plastic cups.

In the bright early-afternoon sunlight, the crystal-clear water revealed the scene below. Through his goggles, Liu could see small schools of newly spawned fish darting in all directions around him, playfully eluding his hapless grasp. Floating on his front with his own dark shadow beneath him, he explored the quiet world around him. A few feet ahead, he spotted a large brown starfish resting motionless on the sandy seabed. As he dived closer for a better look, the ground beneath him suddenly trembled, churning the clear water into a murky cloud. Liu then felt a sharp, piercing blow. Stunned by the impact, he staggered in the waist-deep water, crying out and flailing his arms in agonising pain. His cries shattered the peaceful early-afternoon, alerting his parents.

Spilling much of his coffee as he jumped to his feet, Salvatore rushed to his wailing son. Liu was incoherent, but the situation was clear. As Salvatore lifted him out of the water, he saw blood seeping through Liu’s yellow cotton trunks. To his horror, a piece of stingray barb, not much bigger than an ice-cream stick, had torn through his trunks and lodged between his inner thigh and scrotum.

Salvatore instinctively knew that trying to remove the barb himself would only cause more injury. The safest option was to stem the bleeding and get their son to the hospital as quickly as possible. Fortunately, their Kingswood was parked close to the sand under the shade of the huge cypress trees lining the foreshore.

Leaving everything but their valuables under the beach umbrella, they drove off with their trunks still dripping wet. Liu lay on the back seat, dizzy and nauseous, his head resting on his mother’s damp lap. Tina wept for much of the journey, gently caressing her son’s forehead, powerless to ease his pain—or to look away from the terrible sight of the barb protruding from his skin, which stirred a traumatic memory from her youth.

Upon arrival at the hospital, he was swiftly rushed through the Emergency Department and triaged to the operating theatre for immediate surgery. Under a general anaesthetic, much of the exposed barb was safely removed, but subsequent x-rays revealed small broken shards still lodged in his scrotum, necessitating further delicate surgery for their removal.

Although the hospital had treated patients with stingray wounds before, typically to the feet, ankles, and legs, the boy’s injury was the first of its kind they had ever encountered. Following the surgery, the doctors confirmed that Liu had sustained a form of testicular trauma resulting in the rupture of the spermatic cord. While the subsequent surgery went well, the prognosis for a full recovery from his injury was uncertain. The possibility of permanent damage and potential infertility came as an unfathomable shock to the boy’s parents, who watched on as their only child lay motionless in bed, still heavily sedated.

The day at Portarlington Beach marked the beginning of Liu’s unconventional path to parenthood—something his own parents could never have imagined. Yet it was deeply connected to his father’s story, one of love, a passion for the sea, and unwavering idealism, all of which would ultimately shape Liu’s destiny.