Surfing Waves

So all this fear of surfing discussion. I thought it might be interesting to hear what is your worst injury, scariest injury, most expensive injury from surfing maybe also could throw in close calls, bad poundings/wipeouts, damaged boards, etc along the line of reasons to fear surfing. I'll probably add a story at a time. I thought maybe I would tell you all about the worst reef injury that I had. It was from bodysurfing. I had started surfing and went with some friends to check out a break but didn't bring a board since it was just a check to see how it was as a possible furture spot. There was a long reef break at a beach called Anini beach and it wasn't known among surf community as a surf spot but one of my friends thought it had potential. When we got there it was so good looking I had to go out and bodysurf it. I caught quite a few waves and then decided it was time to go in. There was a channel that I could have swam in through but I decided to just ride a wave in over the shallow reef something I had done at other reefs and survived. So I caught a good sized wave and kept my eyes open. It was really shallow but I was passing over all these coral heads no problem then suddenly I hit a coral head and dinged my stomach. When I came in it was bleeding like crazy and there were like 10 or so cuts running about 10 inches long on my belly. I could see brownish tissue underneath the skin. Someone told me that was brown fat LOL I was so skinny but it was right where my fat should be. I did the usual routine for wounds, scrub with soap and water and leave it alone. It healed in a couple weeks.

This was just a minor reef hug after a wipeout. But on another occasion being in the turbulence under water the rail of my board hit me on the cheekbone, and I heard it break. When I surfaced I was happy to see that it was the rail of the board that was broken and not the bone. (Good it was a PU board and not a Firewire with the ding resistant balsa rail) Nice shiner though. Could have been a lot worse.

Horner's one of my favorite breaks, it's a left breaking deep reef break also has a right breaking wave but there is a big pile of rocks that stick out of the water inside of the break but it is called Honer's rock as if there is only one. On a small day the wave will break left straight toward the rocks. On larger days it breaks well in front but you don't want to wipe out there in front of the rocks. The reason I am mentioning the rock is that on some days there is a right breaking wave that sometimes will break right to the rocks. I was surfing on one of those days and mixing up left and rights. So I would catch a left then paddle out to the right and ride a right then paddle out to the left.

I caught a right breaking wave and got tubed deeply and perhaps the reason I remember it is two fold. One is it was about a 6 or more foot tube and it was huge. There was so much room in that tube, I was riding standing up fully and I held both my arms out sideways and I wasn't even close to touching water. I was tubed for a good deal of time too and I was starting to get anxious because I knew the rocks were coming. So as I exit the tube I was ready to react to the rock(s) and it was right there in front of me so I turned to the top of the wave and my board got caught in the lip as it pitched over and I kind of wiped out there and went over the falls fortunately over the rocks too. After I went in I checked myself out carefully and found a red line not quite a wound along my chest and my board had a similar scratch on the deck. It was both scary and beautiful together. I still remember it quite well both for being a close call and for the awesome tube ride.

Wow those are some spooky stories, I haven't been surfing long so I don't have that many close calls.
I've had a good pounding on an overhead day, held under 15 seconds at a time for a whole set, squeaky clean nose and ears ringing, the whole thing

For injuries, I was dropping down a wave and as soon as I bottom turn there's an upside down longboard with a long carbon fin right infront of me, I jump off my board and my foot lands infront of the fin, it sliced between my toes, not deep but deep enough to bleed.

And your occasional attempts to kick out on a bad section and going over the falls and getting sliced by your fin, got cut on my hands, leg, anywhere really, it's not even that sharp but I still manage to get cut.

Injury: Depression. I had three weeks off from work to just surf at my leisure--even bought a new board for the occasion-- and then the severe rain started and hasn't really stopped.

RinkyDink wrote:Injury: Depression. I had three weeks off from work to just surf at my leisure--even bought a new board for the occasion-- and then the severe rain started and hasn't really stopped.

my sort of similar (in terms of not surfing) but very much old man story...had 3 weeks off as well, was just finishing up a session toward the end of week 1, just one more wave to come in (and then a few days off as I was going elsewhere for Christmas). Not many waves (ie pretty much none), had been waiting for that last one for about 10 minutes or more. A small one came and a person I was sitting with said 'someone should catch it' so I took off and popped up and....back spasms. Was standing on my board unable to move

Managed to paddle in and my back seized up from knee to ribcage and spend the next week and a bit in bed. Guess whats not open between christmas and new year's in small coastal towns...physios. doctors. Anything useful!

So thats my worst surfing injury, put me out of action for the remaining 2 weeks and still pretty bleh. Of course, being injured during the process of successfully popping up is up there with me injuring my knee hyper extending it while doing breast stroke...

The absolutely scariest wipeout I had was at Kealia beach. It was breaking about 3 to 4 feet (up to 8 foot faces) and I was having fun catching some good rides. There was a group of women around my age on the beach and they were obviously watching all the guys surfing. I was pretty sure they were pointing at me so I wanted to do something different to impress them. I caught a wave and rode it all the way to the shore where the wave actually broke right on to the dry sand. I planned on jumping off and ending up standing on the sand but unfortunately the wave jumped up a little and flipped my board out from under my feet. I went up in the air and the board landed on the sand with the (single glassed in) fin pointing up. I fell right on the fin. I could see that this was going to happen and tried to keep from landing too hard and I did manage not to be seriously injured but an inch one way and I would have been talking in a much higher voice and an inch the other way and I would have lost my virginity.

My worst injury was a poke from the nose of my board into my left calf muscle. It happened in a wipeout and initially I didn't think it was too bad because my leg still worked and I didn't notice any bleeding or structural damage to my leg. I just thought I had bruised it a little. I went right back to surfing after inspecting the damage. Then I was sitting on my board and I noticed some green stuff floating by my left lower leg. I wondered what the heck is that stuff and then caught another wave. I was sitting again and noticed the green stuff and this time it seemed to be coming out of my leg so I pulled my leg out of the water and there was a small hole in my leg maybe the size of a pencil lead but if I squeezed my leg blood poured out of the wound. I went in and held pressure on it for 10 minutes and it kept bleeding. I figured I better go see a doctor so I called my wife on my cell phone which in those days was a device about the size of a large book with an antenna and a phone similar to a land phone on top of it. Anyway she came and picked me up and took me to the hospital but right before we got there it quit bleeding however I figured I might as well go anyway since I was there. So it was also my most expensive injury.

Hearing the stories on here, I'm glad that I'm wearing a 4/3 wetsuit so I don't get severe injuries/cuts by my own board or reef.

I've never been hurt surfing, but skimboarding....

With some skating under my belt, I thought skimming would be an easy and fun thing to do after my surfs. NOT! On my first slide (and with an audience) the board slid away because I stood too tall while jumping on. I went down hard and bounced to a stop on my butt. The strawberry took my breath away and brought an end to the day.

I had several injury free days until I got cocky and decided to climb a small wave. (again with an audience) Well...the nose didn't get very high and I didn't have enough momentum, so the wave pitched me back into a face plant on the sand. The strawberry took my breath away and brought another end to the day.

The most painful injury I got surfing was one day I was surfing at Kealia and I was going through some whitewater I did a push up on my board and allowed the whitewater to go between me and my board and what I soon found out is that I also let a Portuguese man-o-war go between me and my board and it decided to go down my surf shorts instead of passing by harmlessly like the rest of the wave. It was so painful I was temporarily paralyzed and fell off my board and was under water thinking "I can't move my legs. I am going to drown from a Portuguese man-o-war. Who would have thought that would happen???" Then suddenly I realized I had a leash on as it floated by my face, still not used to them because I surfed so long without them. I just grabbed the leash and pulled myself up to the surface and took off my shorts removed as much of the jellyfish as I could and put back on the shorts then let the whitewater carry me in still feeling somewhat paralyzed by the stings. By the time I got to the shore I could use my legs again and stood on the beach dropped trow and examined myself for bits of stinging tentacles. There were none visible so I grabbed a bunch of sand and rubbed my privates with sand thinking that I didn't care if anyone was watching me. The way I usually deal with those kind of jellyfish stings is to remove them and look for bits of tentacles which are blue colored so easily visible and remove them then rub sand to get rid of anything I can't see. Anyway it was so painful but fortunately not for very long

BaNZ wrote:Hearing the stories on here, I'm glad that I'm wearing a 4/3 wetsuit so I don't get severe injuries/cuts by my own board or reef.

I have a wetsuit but my break is infamous for snakes, each waves has like 3 people on them, I'll let you imagine the fin cut frenzy that happens here, all my injuries were from other surfers bailing their boards or just flying into me.

For oldmansurfer about the nose in the leg, that's why I like roundish fuller noses plus it's easier to paddle , I like having a board that can't stab me in the neck while I'm in the washing machine or stab someone who can't duck dive.
This is my new board by the way guys Too bad surfs crap for the weekend so I have to wait a week to take this baby out.

icetime wrote:I have a wetsuit but my break is infamous for snakes, each waves has like 3 people on them,

I thought you were talking sea snakes and thinking 'that would be an issue'. Might even be worse than snaking people. Imagine surfing with snakes

There is a part in the book Barbarian Days where he is camping on an island (Tavarua) that would eventually become famous as the site of cloudbreak. In any case, at night the sea snakes would leave the water and come on shore and there were so many that you had to sleep in a hammock otherwise they would just slither over the top of you and he could hear them on the ground moving around...but during the day the snakes presumably would be in the water and presumably could be in the surf with you. Very venomous but fortunately v small mouths

oldmansurfer wrote:The most painful injury I got surfing was one day I was surfing at Kealia and I was going through some whitewater I did a push up on my board and allowed the whitewater to go between me and my board and what I soon found out is that I also let a Portuguese man-o-war go between me and my board and it decided to go down my surf shorts

Another benefit of wetsuits! Sounds awful. I've seen a few women wearing bikinis stung across the top of their chest but I think going down your shorts is worse

Australian recommended treatment is to pick off the tentacles and cover with hot water (eg get in a shower).

When I was paipo boarding a friend and I swam into an armada of them. We each had 10-20 of them between our chests and backs. We were too intent on looking at the waves Swam back in and picked them off our chests then I picked the ones off his back and he picked them off mine. He ended up almost unable to function for several days but i was back to normal by the night. He looked like someone whipped him. My paipo boarding buddy and I eventually went to wearing wetsuits to decrease the trauma from the wooden boards on big waves. It also helped to keep us comfortable temperature wise although we never went in because we were cold (it never got that cold). It did help with Man-o-war protection but did not cover the neck which is the site of the second most painful man-o-war sting that I got. Anywhere near a lymph node is more painful in my opinion like under the arm (third most painful sting)

dtc wrote:I thought you were talking sea snakes and thinking 'that would be an issue'. Might even be worse than snaking people. Imagine surfing with snakes

Who knows? It could happen.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... a-beaches/

There was at least one surfer who died in Bali from a snake bite. We have those yellow bellied seasnakes wash up in Hawaii too. I have never seen one on the beach but did see a pickled specimen at the Department of Agriculture. I know someone who found a barely alive seasnake on the beach on Kauai

icetime wrote:Too bad surfs crap for the weekend so I have to wait a week to take this baby out.

She's a beauty. Looks like a fine board. Have patience and you'll be having a blast on it soon I'm sure.

I had one injury where I injured my board and my board injured me. I was surfing Hanalei and this was a double overhead wave so around 12 foot face. It was a little crowded and I was deep in the lineup probably where I would be anyway even if it wasn't crowded. I took off on the wrong wave. It had a huge section that broke way in front and I had no way to get up speed to get through it so I cut out straight up the face a kind of emergency eject. I flew up ion the air at least 12 feet maybe 15 or so and my board hit the lip and stopped right there (no leash). I could see I was going to land on my board and not wanting to break it in two I altered my foot position so it didn't land on the board. There was no way to alter my trajectory, that was decided after my feet left the board so I just moved my feet to the side hoping not to land on the board but my heel hit the rail making a huge ding and lacerating my heel. To make matters worse I went in and was talking to a friend on the beach showing him my heel injury and he wanted to see the ding on the board and I turned the board over to bring up the damaged rail and the board slipped from my hands and cracked the glass around the single glassed in fin. Now I had two repairs to do.

oldmansurfer wrote:I had one injury where I injured my board and my board injured me. I was surfing Hanalei and this was a double overhead wave so around 12 foot face. It was a little crowded and I was deep in the lineup probably where I would be anyway even if it wasn't crowded. I took off on the wrong wave. It had a huge section that broke way in front and I had no way to get up speed to get through it so I cut out straight up the face a kind of emergency eject. I flew up ion the air at least 12 feet maybe 15 or so and my board hit the lip and stopped right there (no leash). I could see I was going to land on my board and not wanting to break it in two I altered my foot position so it didn't land on the board. There was no way to alter my trajectory, that was decided after my feet left the board so I just moved my feet to the side hoping not to land on the board but my heel hit the rail making a huge ding and lacerating my heel. To make matters worse I went in and was talking to a friend on the beach showing him my heel injury and he wanted to see the ding on the board and I turned the board over to bring up the damaged rail and the board slipped from my hands and cracked the glass around the single glassed in fin. Now I had two repairs to do.

I'd be more worried about my heel than my board, just saying
You can buy new equipment but not a new body

Well over my life I have had a lot of injuries and they all healed up just fine without having to do repairs I had to repair the board and in addition I didn't want to take the fin off so I tried grinding out the cracks and reglassing it something that may work but in my case it didn't I guess the resin under the fin was broken and even when I repaired the visible crack the fin would hum and vibrate the board at high speed (big waves) like a skateboard on a steep hill with bearings about to blow. Had to remove the whole fin and reset it.