The Dangers of Surfing Big Waves and Brain Injuries
How often are surfers getting concussed.or worse?
Tom Dosland. Photo: Fred Pompermayer
Dashel Pierson
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At a remote surf spot in northern California, Shawn Dollar was in trouble. It was 2015 and Dollar was surfing alone. When a large set steamrolled his way, he stood on his board for a few feet of extra leverage, and dove beneath the whitewash. But, as he broke the surface, he went head-first into a shallow rock.
His neck was broken; his brain, scrambled.
“The real problem was, which I found out later, that all the concussions I had before added up, and this one was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Dollar, a two-time world record holder for biggest wave ever surfed (one at Maverick’s, another at Cortes Bank). “When I went up to the Amen Clinic, the results from the scans looked like I had played high school, college, and pro football. I had the brain of a pro football playe
Editor’s Note:
posted last week.
First off, let it be known that I’m not saying surfing leashless isn’t dumb, because for plenty of reasons, it is. It just isn’t not-wearing-a-mask-in-the-middle-of-a-pandemic dumb, as some might suggest. Here’s the dirty little secret about
wearing a leash – in many ways, it can be less safe than not wearing a leash, even and especially in the crowded lineup that supposedly is anathema to the leashless. Confused? Read on.
My main complaint with leashes is that they teach you that it’s ok to mostly lose control of your board. By mostly lose control of your board, I mean have it on the end of a rope tied to your ankle flailing around like a medieval mace-and-chain. Sure, it’s still attached to you, but you really don’t have a ton of control over it. Ever heard of the “circle of life/blood circle/safety circle” in knife handling? It’s got a lot of different names, but basically, it’s a circle (duh) the radius of which is
Surfing leashless is sort of like going maskless in a pandemic. You might find the leash slightly uncomfortable, but your slight discomfort pales in comparison to the possible consequences of your actions.
The Team Edit Is Alive And Well
Episode 2 of O’Neill’s ‘Hawaii Live’ series inside. cinema // Feb 4, 2021
Words by Zack Raffin
Team houses on the North Shore of Oahu have been a ubiquitous facet of any self respecting pro surfers’ career.
I don’t know when the first legitimate ‘team’ house was formed, but I do know that this tradition has been running strong for the better part of 3 decades (with many fruitful careers having come and gone in that time). While 2020 unfortunately saw the world’s most prolific pilgrimages canceled due to COVID-19, it was a real treat to see that the annual gathering of surfing’s top dogs was able to not only take place, but productively thrive in the way that it did.
Watch: 12-Year-Old “Baby Steve” Roberson on XXL Jaws
There s a bright future for this Maui young gun.
Dashel Pierson
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What were you doing when you were 12 years old? Probably not this.
During Super Swell Saturday full coverage here, here, and here Maui local Steve “Baby Steve” Roberson decided he was ready to play with the big boys and girls, towing into a few of the day’s biggest waves. And needless to say, this kid is way beyond his years.
“I tried to tow a couple, but it was super windy,” explains Roberson in the video above. “I kept on getting blown out the back because I’m super light. Huge sets started coming in, so I was just cruising on the ski. I was gonna call it a day, but I still wanted to get a couple. As it was getting bigger and the swell started to peak, Makua [Rothman] came and jumped on our ski. He’s like, ‘come on, boy, let’s do this!’ So, we went out and got a couple bombs.”