On Feb 11th, Pe’ahi caused a lot of carnage. Local Maui charger and WSL Pe’ahi Challenge competitor Tyler Larronde was forced to straighten out on a bomb, and Jaws absolutely annihilated him. As the lip came down hard, Tyler’s leg drove straight through the deck of his SOS Shapes gun. He ripped a few muscles in his leg and his skin, but luckily no broken bones. Here’s what Tyler had to say about it:
“I was feeling really confident that last swell at Pe’ahi, and felt like I could take off on anything. I caught a few waves and was feeling good. Then this thing came out of nowhere and I thought I was in the spot, so I put my head down and committed to it, started paddling and the boys were telling me to go! So I went…
It was probably the steepest drop of my life. I made it to the bottom, looked up, and saw the lip coming down square on top of me. I didn’t know what to do. And boom! The lip landed right on my back leg, sending my knee right through my board. I thought for sure my knee blew out or my leg broke. The wave sent me flying into I don’t know where and landed so hard it took the wind out of me. Long story short, when I finally got rescued by Kurtis Chong Kee of Skullbase, I was on the ski and couldn’t feel or move my leg. I was coughing up chunks of blood. Not feeling good at all.
Made it to the hospital to find out I had no broken bones, just some stretched ligaments and some major bruising and swelling. I’m all good and will be back in the water in a few weeks. I was lucky; it could have been much worse.”
This could have been much worse.
Video by The Go Big Project
