Generally, I prefer my surfing injuries to be self-inflicted. But the fact that I nearly lost my eye due to the carelessness of someone else is enough to make me question surfing Lower Trestles ever again. Ive been surfing the peak at Lowers for 16 years now and its always been absurdly crowded. Last Saturday was no different. The sun was out, I was surfing in trunks and already had a few fun waves in my tally so I was considering catching the next good one in because we were in the midst of a tremendous lull. During a lull, the crowd tends to pack together so I decided to paddle outside and wait for a long-overdue set wave. Once the first wave eventually arrived, I was actually in position to go right, but then the left bowled up and allowed me an easy entrance. I bottom-turned and cracked the lip backside as the dense pack quickly scattered. While I was rotating through my top-turn, I noticed a girl duckdiving right below me. And inside of her were three other grommets all bailing their boards. I jumped off the wave so as not to run the girl over and penetrated the surface somewhere amongst the yard sale. Underwater, I tumbled for a second or two and then…WHAM! I opened my eyes and saw a blue-colored nose of a surfboard, which had just struck me in the eye socket. Still tumbling underwater, I felt for my eye ball to make sure that was still intact. When I confirmed I still had my eye, I thought maybe nothing had happened…until I surfaced and the water was red with blood. The kids board was right next to me and I screamed at him and his two friends, Do I still have my eye?! How is my eye?! His friends said I had a cut but I still had my eye. But the culprit was frozen, like he had just seen a ghost. I yelled at the kids to always hold on to their boards as I quickly whipped it to the beach for help. Thankfully there was a nurse and doctor out at the point and they confirmed my eyeball was fine and that Id come within less than a centimeter from having permanent damage. The lifeguard and, eventually, the ER doctor were both baffled at how lucky I was. So once I was stitched up, I bought a lotto ticket. And now, every time I feel myself getting angry about what happened, I look in the mirror and realize how thankful I am to only come away with seven stitches and no damage to my vision or tear duct. When I was a kid, wed be frothing to get a free Nose Guard to put on our used surfboard. Nowadays, groms are more focused on putting a sponsors sticker on their noses than learning proper surf etiquette. I hope this can be a lesson to everyone out there to be responsible for themselves and control their equipment.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 23:23:39 +0000