gepost door: Rocky op 07/12/04 13:08
Hoi luitjes,
afgelopen weekend is een van onze USA surfkayak-collega's zwaar gewond geraakt bij een aanvaring tijdens het Jalama 2004 event.
Omdat botsingen ook in de NL branding kunnen gebeuren heb ik hieronder het verslag van het gebeurde geplaatst (geschreven door een van de betrokkenen.)
De gewonde peddelaar is mijn BT-buddy Sage69 die me normaal gesproken van video-opnamen van deze USA-events voorziet.
Er is video van de vrijdag en misschien ook van het ongeluk maar die laat nog een tijd op zich wachten, Sage heeft nog een lange herstelperiode voor de boeg...
Voor degenen di em een hart onder de riem willen steken; post t hier en ik zorg dat t bij 'm terecht komt.
Beetje geestelijke steun vanuit de internationale surfkayakscene kan ie wel gebruiken nu.
Mag in t engels maar in NL is misschien ook wel leuk, heeft ie iets om te puzzelen ;-)
Background
This weekend was the annual Jalama Beach surf kayak gathering. A few
of us, including Sage and I had surfed all day Friday, and had a great time.
Saturday morning there were many more paddlers in the water, and most
of us headed down to the spot known as "Tarantulas". It's a good ways down
from the beach/campground, maybe 1/2 or 3/4 a mile, I'm not sure. It's a rocky
reef, the eroded extension of a point, that makes for some fun, long waves.
Lefts tend to be steep, fast and end in grim closeouts.
Rights tend to be steep and fast, but with long shoulders and if you cut out at the right point a
fairly mellow paddle out through a deep water cove.
Super fun spot, but pretty serious. On the inside there are several exposed rocks, some wicked
currents, and nasty waves. Getting caught far on the inside is something you
notice, and try to avoid. Friday I ended up on the rocks in there, and cracked my
boat (not seriously).
It wasn't super huge Saturday,smaller than Friday, but the waves were
still pretty good size. Most of the paddlers were sitting to the south of
the main peak. Which meant the waves were being ridden to the surfers right.
Mine, and I think most people, main technique involved waiting for a board surfer
to blow their takeoff, then hop on the wave and ride it in. It was pretty
crowded in the water, but people were telling others to take waves, and generally
it was a pretty mellow scene. We'd only been out for a little bit when the
accident happened.
Accident
I was a little inside, I actually don't remember if I'd caught a wave,
or pulled off a wave, or why, but I was a bit inside. I was paddling out.
Just to my right was Jason S., and to my left was another paddler (maybe
Jared l.m but I'm not sure) , a bit further away.
Sage was taking off on the wave that I was trying to paddle out through.
When I saw Sage, he was pretty much right in front of me, or a little to MY left.
I aimed to go to his left side, *ssuming he'd go to the right on the wave.
Unfortunately, for whatever reason, we ended up in the same spot,
with Sage coming down a pretty good size wave.
When I realized that a collision was imminent, I capsized
(intentionally, hoping it would just be boats that hit, not people) to my left.
Unfortunately, the bow of my boat struck Sage in the side.
I rolled up, at this point I really didn't think it was big deal, it hadn't felt like much of anything to me.
I was surprised to note that Sage wasn't even attempting a roll,
and I remember wondering if he'd dropped his paddle.
He wet exited, and when he came to the surface, it was clear he was in
intense pain. Since we were still in the surf zone, I knew we needed to get
outside quick. I had Sage grab my cockpit and lie on my backdeck, and I
paddled outside the break as quickly as I could. Someone (Chris R. or Rick S.
???) corralled his boat outside.
Rescue
Sage was in tons of pain, that was clear. Jason S., who has
Wilderness First Responder certification, was trying to *ssess his condition, but it was
clear he was hurt badly. We needed to get him back to the beach.
Taking an injured person in at Tarantulas would be tough and dangerous, so we decided to
put him back in his boat. Rick S., Jared L., Wayne W., Chris R.,Jason S. and
I worked together, and Sage was back in his boat pretty quickly, but hurting and
clearly not able to paddle.
Jared's boat had short lengths of webbing for grab points, and we were able to use that
to tow Sage back to camp. Jared (a 16 y.o., incredibly talented paddler) was a trooper,
and towed Sage back quickly and carefully. I had trouble keeping up and I wasn't towing anybody.
It was still going to be tricky. At the campground, waves come in and
hit a sandy shelf, creating a brutal shorepound. The advantage here were,
it was camp, and the distance from "outside" the surf zone to the beach is
much shorter, but it was still going to be tricky.
Sage couldn't paddle his own boat, so we sent John B. in to alert the ranger,
then Jason S. and I paddled our boats in, leaving Rick S. and Jared L. to watch after Sage.
Jason and I got quickly out of our boats, then swam out through the surf to where Sage,Rick
and Jared where. I had to dive under some pretty good size waves on the way
out, and was pretty nervous, but I'm a strong swimmer and have had some
rescue swimming practice. Even so, I knew getting Sage through the surf
without getting a beating was going to be tough.
Rick had put his PFD on Sage, and sage was out of the boat.
I instructed Sage to lie on his back, I grabbed his PFD and began to tow him in.
I tried my best to time it to get him in between sets, and swam like hell, managed
to only really take one medium/small wave hit. Helped Sage up to the Rangers
Truck, where he lied down and Jason did a preliminary exam. It was clear a
doctor was needed.
The Drive
As quickly as possibly, Jason and I got our things together, and put
Sage in my truck. Jason was awesome to volunteer his day to help, especially
since he had the most First Aid training, so I was stoked he was there. We drove to
Lompoc (an ambulance was considered, but it's a remote enough spot that we figured
we could make the trip one way faster than the ambulance could make it
both ways).
Sage was in obvious pain, with shortness of breath and a bubbly
feeling in his gut. It's a bit of a drive to the small town of Lompoc, once
their, the doctors did some CT scans, decided it was beyond their capabilities,
and arranged for a Transfer to Santa Barbara. Once Sage was on the
ambulance, Jason and I left that hospital, and were getting a quick soda/bathroom
stop, when we saw Sage go by, full lights and sirens.
The Hospital
After gathering up Sage's things, Jason and I went to Santa Barbara,
waited several hours. Simone (Sage's Wife) arrived at some point, obviously
worried, but taking it well. Sage had been taken straight into surgery, so no
one seemed to be able to tell her much about what was wrong. After a FOUR
hour operation, the tired looking doctors came out, and gave us the rundown.
The injuries
I don't think I can adequately describe them, but they are serious. He
has three broken ribs, serious trauma to his lungs, and there was tons of
internal bleeding due to damage in his stomach, deuterium, spleen, etc. etc.
I apologize for not having better info about the details here, I was
pretty tired at that point, and a lot of it went out of my head. He spent last night on
a ventilator, but was taken off it this morning.
I saw him around lunch time today, he was drugged up, but in remarkably good spirits.
That said, he may need more operations to fix the damage done, and regardless has a long
recovery period ahead of him.
Uit een andere BT post van iemand die op bezoek geweest is in t ziekenhuis blijkt dat Sage ondanks de ellende nog steeds over gevoel voor humor beschikt:
He was in excellent spirits, talkative (what a surprise right?) and wanted to know if this automatically got him on the West Coast Team.
I told him no that he still had to qualify and that I had both his boats and wasn't getting them back til he was healthy so he wasn't going to make it this year.
But if the team requires a bobber or bouy we would call him up.
He could be the team honorary swimmer maybe?
His wifes remark was, "your gonna get a lotta sh*t on BT for this!"
I offered to start it also at that time which he responded with another push on the morphine button.
Many of us that were at Jalama signed a get well card that Geoff brought and he had it on his table and was very happy that we did that for him.
He wasn't sure about the one remark that said, "go big or go to the Hospital"!
His feeling was he always goes big AND he went to the hospital!
Again, he is in very good spirits and wanted me to bring his boat up to the ICU. NUT!
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