If you’re a Pipe surfer, you’re aware of just how dangerous of a wave it is. What makes it so dangerous is part of what makes it such a perfect wave, but the pound of flesh for the entrance fee is a heavy one. And at the Backdoor Shootout, Eddie Garcia found out just how heavy it is with a wipeout that could have ended very badly.
Garcia was competing in the stand-up paddle heats of the Shootout. He, like everyone else, was charging. Until he wasn’t.
“On one of the bigger waves of the morning, Eddie Garcia went for it but got hung up in the lip,” wrote Off Da Lip on YouTube. “In a split second he was forced to jump off his board from the top of the wave.”
Now, if all goes as it should, the ideal course of action would have been to jump feet first and pencil dive through the bottom of the wave, penetrating the water. It’s the tried, tested, and true method in wipeouts like his, but Garcia wasn’t able to do it.
“Eddie was put in a very awkward position where he tried to jump forward and ended up going head first for the bottom of the wave,” Off Da Lip continued. “After coming up, he was taken in by the Jet Ski and was able to walk up the beach on his own. Always a good sign.”
Pipeline has been a little more heavy handed this season than usual, putting serious hurts on more surfers than other years. Kai Lenny cracked his helmet during the Shootout, for instance, and earlier in December, Brazilian Joao Chianca was knocked unconscious and resuscitated on the beach after a wipeout. A few weeks later, Tahitian Emilio Czermak was hospitalized after a Pipeline wipeout of his own. Peruvian surfer Joaquin Del Castillo was also sent to the hospital with multiple pelvic fractures.
