well since were on the big wave subject i thought we would share our worst wipeouts, cause the two kind of go hand in hand. both of mine were about 3 years ago. One time i was out surfing with a buddy out at the north end in Va Beach, it was huge and perfect. about 8 foot on the sets but really dumping super hard. So anyways first wave i pull into a huge barrel and get smashed!! Im getting tossed around like a rag doll, one of those wipeouts where your just trying to stay calm. But anyway i come to the surface and the wave had pushed me in a good bit and this was the like the second wave of like a 7 wave set. So i paddle like hell, but the lip of the next wave comes crashing down right in the center of my back. I take a super hard impact, but somehow make it through the wave, I continue paddling and look down only to see that the top half of my board is gone. Not only that, but im pretty far out and there are still waves coming in. So i bail my board and just duck under the white water of the next wave. But the wave takes my half of a board, and somehow just drags it underwater, and its attached to me on my leash, so it starts dragging me under. So i have to struggle a little to get that off, all the while some seriously huge waves are still coming in. So after this whole ordeal i am super winded, and treading water. I yell for my friend, cause i am about to frieking drown. So he paddles over and lets me rest on his board for a about a min. Then seriously the biggest waves i have ever seen in vb rolled in. My friend is starts freaking, saying " be a bro man, you gotta let me take this set." Im sitting there holding on to the nose of his board recovering from nearly drowning. So i let go of his board and he starts paddling out. I attempt to body surf the first wave of the set and cant catch it. But the second one was coming in hot, and i was right in the money spot. So i swam like hell, and body surfer a massive wave, and when the thing closed out on me i got SLAMMED!!! Worst ragdoll ever, I got pushed in halfway to the beach just getting tossed underwater. When it stopped i had no idea which was was up. I managed to swim ashore where i nearly collapsed, and i guess somewhere during i swallowed a bunch of water, cause i just started puking it up. Then i had to sit there and watch my buddy surf huge perfect waves all by himself for an hour. It sucked. And another time my fin somehow got me up underneath my lip and cut up in there so that i could stick my tounge up where your lips meet your gums and feel my nose bone, but it healed in like 3 days cause mouth wounds heal super super quick, so it was no biggy, and i got a rad scar to show the lady now too.
Ernesto When ernesto came through, me and my friend were just messing around and he got off his board to wax and i was watching what he was doing, and i noticed everybody start paddling out around me.. and i look up.. and theres like a 12ft waves coming through and me and him are inside... I was like dude get on your board now... Needless to say we got caught in the break and his leash wrapped around my legs and his board his me in the head i was freaking out.. i paddled outside and just sat there once i found the surface and managed to get out. it was rediculous and scary. Had a headache for the rest of that day. TECHNICALLY not a wipeout.. but goes with the big waves and wipeouts. ________ Jeep Forward Control picture
the last big swell we had i may, i got tossed on the sandbar harder then I've ever hit the bottom before. At low tide on that swell, it was sucking up off the sand bar really hard in Ocean City, MD where I surfed and just super shallow. The bottom of the wave more or less gave out and I got thrown around the barrel and tossed on my back luckily. If i landed on my head or feet first, i could have been in a lot of trouble.
surfing sattelite beach fl 5 years ago during dbl overhead hurricane surf I hit a chop dropping in & my 6'0" (too small for that day) flipped around and stood on it's tail directly under me - I took the nose in my gut and the lip in the middle of my back - knocked the wind out of me and rolled me so hard when everything stopped my board was stretched to the end of my leash beneath me
My worst was in Bethany a while ago when i was still learning to surf it was like maybe 4-5 ft and i dropped in and fell on my bottom turn then got sucked over cause it was dumpin bad and got smashed on the sand and my bord hit me on the leg and the fin cut my foot.
near marbella we found a spot near our hotel in costa rica...in a very secluded area slightly north of nosara. it broke at low tide, which is weird for that area, and it broke over a rocky sand ledge. it was kind of like a lava finger coming out of the head land. one evening, it was 8 to 10 on the set and sucking up over the ledge...just fast steep walls and really thick lips for that area. 3 of us were just picking sets off and getting big ass barrels. they were big enough to stand straight up in, but we had to be in survival mode trying to get out. i got some balls and stood up in one, drug my hand above my head along the curl, and i accepted that it was about to swallow me. my friend was paddling out 20 feet in front of me, and he saw the whole damn thing collapse on my head and watched me then get sucked over the falls. i got pinned on the ledge, and when i came up, there were like 4 waves behind it. i just kept getting washed in until i got to the urchins and paddled back out. that spot is a baaad paddle, can be 100 yards from the beach, but you usually jump in along the side of the ledge from the headland. wont ever forget it, and wont ever regret it. when the sun caught it just right, the water was blue, and it looked like that image of pipe where its like 45 degrees to the wave and pipe is in the foreground and backdoor is in the background as the wave is about to peak up.
i was surfing a pretty decent day (7ft. at 9seconds) and they were pretty big, i had managed getting up on the first 2 waves i got and was stoked. so the next set came along and i pearled HARD! i faceplanted into the wave and immediately threw my hands and arms up over my head for protection. well that failed miserably. my board went nose first into my jugular (actually my lymph nodes) but regardless i started drowning and luckily hit the bottom and jumped. i was sore there for weeks, scary as **** but all i know is im good for more. its not stopping me for ****
I was surfing a relatively small day last year, but I had just gotten back into it after a few years out. It was a head high with occassional 1'OH set rolling in type of day, with a lot of closeouts and a decent shorebreak. I dropped in too too too late and got pounded to the bottom with what felt like 5 million gallons of water beating me to death. I got very lucky though and managed to get pushed forward enough to be able to stand up and hobble away but I sat on the sand rubbing my neck and head saying "well, gee I forgot how much that can suck".
I was surfing a waist-chest day in delaware a few years ago and tried to back bail over a closeout section but ended up hitting the folding lip and getting sucked over feet first onto my upside-down board. The side fin hit the instep of my foot like an axe. Got to the beach and asked a friend if it was bad and he started to retch. So I drove myself to the walk-in emergency clinic in rehoboth off Rt. 1 with a towel wrapped around my foot and eventually the got all the sand and crap out of the cut and stitched it up and but a bandage on it. The painkillers they gave me when suturing ran out about halfway though the two-hour drive home and I have a stick shift car. Every shift I had to stifle a scream and I was out of the water for like 3 weeks. Sucked!
never paddle out when your sick it was march 2007, we had a sick noreaster swell, 7-8ft...by some kind of miracle i was actually off work and school that day, but i was getting over a bad flu. i couldn't resist, so i paddled out in 38 degree water with a board way too short for the conditions, i caught one sick one and got barrelled, so i got cocky and took off really late on my next one, went over the falls, after a series of under water cartwheels and flips, i come up with a bad ice cream head ache and reach for my board to find only half of it there, so i had to paddle back with a ridiculous current, thick ass suit(swimming really sucks in winter suits) , and half a board in nearly freezing water when i was really fatigued already from being sick...i thought i was gonna drown, but i made it..big relief
Did anyone see the movie Surf’s Up? The wipe out that Cody has on his first big wave pretty much illustrates exactly what happened to me last October. It was the first overhead swell I was ever in, the sets were pounding and it was a really hard rip that day, it took me several tries just to paddle out to the line up...I finally get to the line up, winded but overly excited to be out there. I was so anxious to catch my first big wave(“it was going to be the best ride of my life”), I took the first wave of the next big set (that was smart)... nosed dived right off of the lip like a rag doll. The wave held me under for over a minute, my board smashed me in the head only to reach the surface to get pounded down again with the next 4 waves of the on coming set, somehow I made it back to the line up to rest/pass-out...”welcome to winter on the jersey shore”. There were several people with video cameras and taking pics from the beach that day, I saw that deer in headlights glare as I faced the shore . I am sure that someone got that mess on tape... yes everyone that was me!
surfing our secret spot thats 30 minutes from the hospital in florida, head high day tuckin in to get barreled and the nose caught a little so i dove forward and the board came back and the nose went straight into my head, 4 staples and 2 stitches. it bled a lot haha pretty sharky waters where we were also. Im also pretty sure it damage my brain haha
I was in the outer banks surfing. There was a tropical storm. The wave hight was maybe shoulder sets yet really fast and powerful. I went for one and the bottom dropped out and I decided to bail and pull back but it was to late, I fell from the lip and hit my board. my knee punched a hole right through my board. I didnt even realize it had hit my board till a few minutes later when I was sitting back out in the lineup, I felt my board and there was a huge hole in it, and my knee was gushing blood. I got out of the water and took my board to Natural Art to get it patched. I've gotten better, but for a while, whenever I would bail, I would always freak out a little and think i'm going to hit my board again, or maybe my board will turn over and i'll impale myself on the fins. oh well though......
*offtopic* I literally just watched that movie last night and thought it was hilarious. Was it just me and the beer laughing or was it actually funny? Hah
Its one of our all time favorties! Chicken Joe is classic! Its funny sober and even better with a couple a drinks in ya.
it was interesting how the movie picked out the 3 types of steoreotypical surfers: the soul surfer the burn out surfer the contest surfer
3-27-2007 It was a groundswell.. I forget the direction. Top sets were head to a little overhead high. The air temp was like 75 degrees and the wind was light offshore. I paddled out no problem to one of the jetties at my home break and it was packed as hell. I honestly don't know how I made it out without having to duckdive under anything. Being a bodyboarder I sometimes have trouble getting waves when I'm in a lineup of all surfers, so I was sitting there for pretty long. All of a sudden a gigantic bomb set of waves start rolling in and I knew I was a little too far inside. I paddled as fast as I could and started my duckdive but I was a little off in my position. I got sucked right over and tossed around like a ragdoll. I was under for maybe 10 seconds and then I surfaced right on top of the jetty almost. I thought I was going to break my head open. 2 more of these monsters came through and slammed me into the jetty, luckily I stuck my fins out to stop the impact. I struggled in the rip running around the jetty, got out, and collapsed on the beach. That was the most insane wipeout I've had.
Sounds dumb but the worst injuries I have had were on sub-par surf when you don't always need to be on your toes. Once, during probably waist high surf, I rode one to shore and after hopping of my board got distracted for a second and another wave crashed into me and my board, hitting me in the head. The nose of my board put a nice gash in my head right behind my ear. A few butterfly stitches from CVS later and I was out again.
