From the Independent Producer Project of KCRW, I'm Bob Carlson and this is Unfictional.

Unfictional is a program of true stories, personal documentaries, and radio movies,

and this episode sounds like a movie. documentaries and radio movies.

And this episode sounds like a movie.

Cameron Bloom and his wife Sam live with their sons in a house

in the northern beaches above Sydney, Australia.

Sam suffers a devastating spinal cord injury but is helped by the unexpected friendship of a wild magpie bird named Penguin.

So of course there's a book and a movie is in the works. The film is one thing, but the reality is having your life cleaved in two by a family vacation that goes wrong.

Anna warning that there are some disturbing images in this story

ABC radio producer Jessica Beneth spend some time with the Bloom family a few months back

from KCRW.com, it's unfictional.

So the first thing to know about Cameron and Sam is that they love to travel.

They spent their 20s traveling around the world and then came back to Australia to have a couple of kids and things sort of slow down

Then in 2013 they felt like their kids were finally old enough to go on an overseas trip,

so they planned a surf trip to Thailand.

But a few days in, Sam's in this terrible accident.

One minute, they're on the beach, the next minute

Cameron's sitting next to his wife in the back of an ambulance.

I remember in the ambulance when we were going to the hospital.

I had my phone on me. I was torn between taking a photo of Sam lying there and not taking a photo between documenting your own wife possibly

dying and I guess being voyeuristic.

Cameron's a photographer.

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