The Dangers of Surfing Big Waves and Brain Injuries How often are surfers getting concussed...or worse? Tom Dosland. Photo: Fred Pompermayer Dashel Pierson Link copied to clipboard 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 player, even though I never played. I just surfed. They were shocked. They scan thousands of NFL players, and they were very surprised to see that in a surfer.”