In the past few years, two of the world’s best surfers have suffered serious wipeouts at Pipeline, which landed them in the hospital. Evan Geiselman was knocked unconscious and nearly drowned. And Owen Wright was throttled so hard that his brain was concussed and bleeding.
With heavy walls of water exploding on a shallow and sharp reef, Pipeline and Backdoor are undoubtedly two of the world’s biggest waves of consequence. And yet, year in and year out, surfer’s from around the world travel to Oahu’s North Shore and attempt to tame the beast. Some successfully, and some not so much.
And with this season already showing just how serious the waves of the North Shore can be, there’s no better time to talk about the dangers. That’s what this video from the WSL does – it’s almost like a PSA, alerting the fans about the potential harm the athletes are facing. But with danger comes epic wipeouts, which the video shows a compilation of recent tumbles. And that’s always fun to watch…from the beach at least.
