Worst surfing battle wound

broke my nose , Slashed my leg , side and shin open. Its one thing to take some licks but to put someone else life at risk is another thing. Thats why proper etiquette is stressed so much

 

Forehead first into 6 inches of water on a reef in Baja. I was on a right, going backside, pulled into the barrel, thought I would spit out, but it sucked me up the face at the last second and sent me head over heals... I was dazed, stunned and covered in blood. Left a scar, but its not that big. Just all the blood made it look gnarly... Have another gash no the head from going over the falls like 7 years ago. I was taking off on a way-too-big beach break, didnt commit, cannon balled off the falls, but the board hit the water after I did, nose first and like a bullet, the things drilled me in the head... Almost knocked me out... Those are the two worse "battle scars" i have...

But by far, my worst injury was due to surfing in poor water quality after rain in CA. Caught a serious case of numerous infections. Left a bullet hole sized hole in my leg... Got infected. I couldn't walk at one point... kept me out of the water for 3 months... And it was traced back from a leak/spill from the Good Old Point Loma Sewage facility. They had released like 400 million gallons of RAW poo poo in the ocean like 7 days before that...

So, sometimes you dont even realize how hurt you are. It took a month for the infection to peak and put me out of commission. I thought I just had pulled a muscle or something at first.....

 

worst battle wound

got you guys all beat. when i was 12, was paddling for a wave. sat up to let it go but too late. over the falls we go. board dug in then shot back up at me as i was coming down. fin first right in the nuts! got to the beach, saw blood on my birdwells. looked inside and aaaahhhhhh! sack sliced open and my bare little nut was sticking right out! worst part was having to show mom then sitting spread eagle in the hospital getting stitched up!

 

BLACKJACK!

Yeah, you pretty much got us beat for sure... my goodness. that is brutal... When the bacteria infected wound "Burst" on my leg, there was a 2-3 inches hole right down through my muscle. I almost passed out jsut looking inside my own leg... and there I was thinking that was bad... A sliced sack is pretty much the worst case scenerio....

P.S. I know all of your feet are busted like mine. From bailing, having those leashes rip across the tops of your feet as the board churns underwater... About once a week, I get out and the tops of my feet are bloody as hell.... You just feel it rip across the tops of your feet, smashing into every vein there is.... thats just the daily grind though I guess... my feet are all busted up from surfing... broken toes... scars everywhere... ewww

 

captmike,

i saw someone in carolina beach slice their change purse open. the guys foot slipped on the rail and spun the board over......you know the rest.

i've torn ligaments and tendons and muscles, but never stitches or staples. A good friend of mine got his head gashed open during igor. the fin caught him underwater on top of his head. He ended up having to get 10 staples in his head to close a 4 inch gash.

 

yeah I got these to almost like caluses or bumps on the top of my feet from bailing and the board hitting it . Never have a leash cut me cause i dont wear one

 

Holy hell....!

 

man i dunno how i havent gotten anything close to what has been described. anytime i know i am done, i ball up arms over face, hands over head, knees covering stomach, shins got the jewels covered. ive only surfed sandbars though so its more forgiving, even if sometimes its pebbly as hell. but anytime i fall i usually just churn in water, or rarely hit the bottom (the ball up prevents anything more than a bump).

however, this has failed me only 2 freak times. the first i pearled by accident going down the face of the wave and pretty much swan dove and faceplanted in front of the board. as soon as i was able to move i balled and and rolled forward in the water. well the board was still moving and ended up jabbing me right in the neck (a little off center) and i had trouble breathing for a few days. that was NOT pleasant at all.

2nd time was a few months back and similar situation but this time the board flipped and a fin smacked my inner right thigh (thats the sacrifice i need to preserve my holy land haha). at first i just saw a few minor scrapes and had trouble walking kinda like a dead leg. well when i got home i saw a bruise bigger than my fist on my leg. purple/yellowish type of bruise and ended up needed a crutch to walk for a day. the bruise remained for an entire week.

guess ive just had lots of practice wiping out

 

yeah, this whole sack story reminds me of that skateboard video, it was on Tosh.0 last year, where this like 14 year old kid ollied a flight of like 16 stairs, when he landed, his foot slipped off, projecting the board vertically, straight up... Long story shorts, the nose of the skateboard completely ripped apart his whole taint... yes that stretch of skin between you know what and you know where. He basically has balls and a vagina now... gnarly... poor kid.

 

Uggggghhhhh!!!! That's heavy.

 

this summer I got stabbed in the ankle by one of my fins that ended up leaving a big ass scar which i dont think is going away any time soon. the thing bled every time i put a sock on and didnt scab over for around 2 days. my worst wipeout was actually body surfing (i know ha ha), I had fins on so i was getting really good rides and some huge drop ins. A huge set came in so i decided to go for it, but the wave ended up closing out really fast, sending me straight down into an ankle high sandbar (trust me it wasnt there before ). I ended up with a huge bruise on my forehead and a gnarly headache

 

I had just picked up a set of true ames carbon fiber fins (bad idea) which were razor sharp. Kicked my fin during a duck dive and stabbed my heal all the way to the bone. no insurance = no stitches (also a bad idea). I have zero feeling in that heal, occasionally it will feel like its "asleep". Im guessing perm. nerve damage.

 

I've been lucky. no injuries to speak of other than minor cuts and bruises. Had hypothermia twice tho.

 

Nothing major, just tons of minor cuts and bruises. One time I hit my head on the bottom and thought I paralyzed myself, but I only jarred my neck. Snowboarding and skateboarding have kicked my ass on the other hand.

 

This stories get worse & worse. WTF !

Of course, we're all still morbidly fascinated & reading intently...like watching a train wreck...

Mine wasn't bad: caught a nice long wave in the DR, it ended, I went under, I popped up, turned towards shore & received 9' of fast-moving, slingshot-effect-from-the-leash longboard straight in the face. Opened me up nicely, just above my eye. As I left the water & walked down the beach, people moved away from me.... it looked like someone had hit me in the face with an axe cause the water mixed with all the blood.
Helluva headache, 24 Dominican stitches (novocaine? we don't have no steenking novocaine !) & a raft of cold Presidentes from that one.


I always used to say, when I first started surfing, that this sport is about pain.

 

Surfing at Maycocks in Barbados after college on a big swell. Hadn't been in the water for like 5 years since I was too busy drinking and chasing women for the most part. Anyway was on a very old and too small board I had brought that I got when I was 17 and way smaller. Long story short bailed and swam under a wave looked for my baord and the leash sling shot it back into my face. It hit me so hard i had no clue what happened I thought someone had thrown a rock at me or something very disoriented. Reached up to feel my face and there was a peice of bone sticking out of my nose. It hit me right where your nose meets your brow and a peice of bone had chipped off and popped out of the skin. My nose broke there and slid directly over about a centimeter as well. I pulled the bone peice out and prayed it was a peice of glass but it wasnt. Long story short the broken nose looked bad and was probably more painful to fix no real issues once that was over and done with. The bone chip turned out not to make it any worse but I'll tell you what it freaks you out more than a little bit when it happens. Lesson learned NEVER look for your board EVER especially when your leash is extended. Very lucky it didnt knock me out that would have been the end of me for sure.

 

Last year I was out on a day with just some clean waist high waves towards the end of spring, just myself and my buddy out. I caught a wave, attempted a cutback which resulted in the odd feeling of not having a right leg to stand on.

I just toppled over to see my right knee dislocated, not the first time since ive done it on my left knee 3 times prior to this but not while surfing. My friend had to carry me to the beach, some poor old tourist helped. Lucky by the time the ambulance arrived i had my knee cap pushed back in and i went home with my dad. Paramedics were saying that if i went with them they would have had to cut my wetsuit off and I wasn't going to have that happen.

Worse part about this is whenever i surf it is always in the back of my mind and i try not to do cutbacks and wearing my knee brace is quite hard in my 4/3.

 

Broken nose and ribs, not to mention almost drowning down on Hatteras Island when I was younger....