Amazing story from SurferMag.com!
http://surfermag.com/features/onlineexc ... ntsrescue/
Mentawais Rescue at Lances' Left
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Bud
- Supreme Overlord
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LGREANZ
- Posts: 1527
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wow pretty cool to see this story made it into the surfa razzi news.
I was donw there when this incident happened, the surf was very small at the time, towards the end of the trip, and Lances left is crazy shallow when your just surfing the inside shelf. I meet this guy Woody at the hotel waiting to get back to singapore and he was totally tripping on the whole situation. The Indos who found Wal floating face down were just villagers trying to sell their carvings and Woody just happened to be at the right place at the right time to save this guys life, So lucky.
I was donw there when this incident happened, the surf was very small at the time, towards the end of the trip, and Lances left is crazy shallow when your just surfing the inside shelf. I meet this guy Woody at the hotel waiting to get back to singapore and he was totally tripping on the whole situation. The Indos who found Wal floating face down were just villagers trying to sell their carvings and Woody just happened to be at the right place at the right time to save this guys life, So lucky.
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Adder
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- Location: Texas
me and two buds were camping at witches rock in costa rica......the guy i came with from texas got all drunk the first night there and wandered off with a little tiny flashlight, and ended up falling off of a 100 foot cliff. we didn't know it at the time.....
the next morning he was nowhere to be found and we couldn't find him anywhere...it's all jungle and hard to find anything there.
that night two ticos came to our camp saying they had found our friend and he was pretty badly hurt.
they took us to him, he was in a buch of shrubs at the base of the cliff, all cut up and paralyzed from the waist down, and really sunburned and dehydrated, totally incoherent.
he didn't even recognize me, and we grew up together....
we had to duct tape him to a board, carry him through an estuary back to camp, then into the truck and drove to the closest hospital about an hour away.
the idiots there said he just had a concussion, but i knew it was a spinal cord injury.
i called hermann hospital in houston where i was in residency at the time and talked them into sending the lifeflight jet down to pick him up.
back in the states we found out he had fractured several vertebrae, busted a couple of ribs, and i think his humerus also was fractured.
we were able to give him steroids before getting on the jet in costa rica, and he had back surgery to decompress his spinal cord within 48 hours all told.
he's been through rehab and is back in the water again, we both surfed together during hurricane ivan this year!
so yeah, it is good to have buds along.....
that's one thing i don't like about my hawaii trips, i don't know anyone there, and it kinda sucks surfing by myself all the time....
=/
the next morning he was nowhere to be found and we couldn't find him anywhere...it's all jungle and hard to find anything there.
that night two ticos came to our camp saying they had found our friend and he was pretty badly hurt.
they took us to him, he was in a buch of shrubs at the base of the cliff, all cut up and paralyzed from the waist down, and really sunburned and dehydrated, totally incoherent.
he didn't even recognize me, and we grew up together....
we had to duct tape him to a board, carry him through an estuary back to camp, then into the truck and drove to the closest hospital about an hour away.
the idiots there said he just had a concussion, but i knew it was a spinal cord injury.
i called hermann hospital in houston where i was in residency at the time and talked them into sending the lifeflight jet down to pick him up.
back in the states we found out he had fractured several vertebrae, busted a couple of ribs, and i think his humerus also was fractured.
we were able to give him steroids before getting on the jet in costa rica, and he had back surgery to decompress his spinal cord within 48 hours all told.
he's been through rehab and is back in the water again, we both surfed together during hurricane ivan this year!
so yeah, it is good to have buds along.....
that's one thing i don't like about my hawaii trips, i don't know anyone there, and it kinda sucks surfing by myself all the time....
=/
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LGREANZ
- Posts: 1527
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wow talk about a trip from hell, Glad your friend recovered and hopefully you were able to salvage the rest of that trip and get some waves.
I camped at Witches, pretty gnarlly out there,all types of creatures come crepping once the fire goes out. My friends were paranoid they were gonna get eaten by crocs.
I camped at Witches, pretty gnarlly out there,all types of creatures come crepping once the fire goes out. My friends were paranoid they were gonna get eaten by crocs.
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Adder
- Posts: 166
- Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2004 6:41 pm
- Location: Texas
thx LG, the rest of the trip was a bummer deal but that's okay!
it's bad enough lugging my stuff around, so it really sucked with two people's junk! but i would hope he would have done the same for me....
hehehe ya that is an awesome place, we saw lots o crocs but they were pretty shy compared to the ones in in matagorda where we go here a lot....my wife's granpa has a rickety old fishing hut on the colorado river, and if you go out there really late at night you can use a spotlight to find them by the reflection of their eyes.
if you hold the light on them, they get really curious and come over fast to check out the light.....we've seen them up to 10 feet long and they can be pretty creepy!
fun wave, nice and hollow, super consistent at witches! did you score ollie's point? i've been there twice and got skunked both times....waaaaaa!
it's bad enough lugging my stuff around, so it really sucked with two people's junk! but i would hope he would have done the same for me....
hehehe ya that is an awesome place, we saw lots o crocs but they were pretty shy compared to the ones in in matagorda where we go here a lot....my wife's granpa has a rickety old fishing hut on the colorado river, and if you go out there really late at night you can use a spotlight to find them by the reflection of their eyes.
if you hold the light on them, they get really curious and come over fast to check out the light.....we've seen them up to 10 feet long and they can be pretty creepy!
fun wave, nice and hollow, super consistent at witches! did you score ollie's point? i've been there twice and got skunked both times....waaaaaa!
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lgz
yeah we took a boat out there one time from playas de coccos.
at the time that was the best trip of my life. we surf ollies with 1 other boat only 10 guys total, with perfect chest to head high point break along the coblestone.
witches was big both times, but perfect. super long rides in front of the rock, but what a bitch to get back out.
lots of closeout, supper rip, and clouds of black sand that churn up in the ocean and spook the hell out of ya.
at the time that was the best trip of my life. we surf ollies with 1 other boat only 10 guys total, with perfect chest to head high point break along the coblestone.
witches was big both times, but perfect. super long rides in front of the rock, but what a bitch to get back out.
lots of closeout, supper rip, and clouds of black sand that churn up in the ocean and spook the hell out of ya.
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