Jensen Kirby received burns to 13 percent of his body from an explosion that happened on an Indonesian surf trip. Photo: Jensen Kirby//YouTube
Far-flung, remote destinations offer the surfer’s dream: idyllic scenery, perfect waves, empty lineups. However, when something goes wrong, they can quickly turn into a nightmare. That’s what happened to 19-year-old Perth surfer Jensen Kirby, when a fiery explosion cut his dream surfing trip short and landed him in a remote Indonesian hospital with burns on 13 percent of his body.
“This is the story of how I almost died in remote Indonesia,” begins Kirby’s YouTube vlog, where he explains the story in full. The tale begins at a surf camp on the Telo Islands in Indonesia, where Jensen had spent a couple days stacking clips.
“I had a really good session,” he recounts, remembering it was the day after a 45-year-old surfer died at nearby Rangas. “We were on the boat, about to go for a surf, and the mechanic was putting the battery into the boat.” Tired and just wanting to go surf, Kirby was only half paying attention to the repair happening next to him.
However, the mechanic ended up flipping the negative and positive terminals on the battery, which created a spark and exploded the battery. Even worse though, was that there seemed to be gasoline in the bilge, which also ignited. “Earlier that morning we actually were pumping out the bilge and there was petrol and stuff coming out,” explains Jensen. “So the battery exploded and it ignited the petrol fumes, creating a huge fireball. It was crazy. It was literally out of a movie. I was just standing there like, ‘What the hell? This is crazy.’”
In an instant, he went from watching the mechanic to being engulfed in flames. He describes hearing the whooshing sound of the fireball sucking in air and seeing the fire around him, before turning and jumping into the ocean.
“When I hopped out of the ocean, my whole body was burning, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is so bad.’ I saw my hair come down in front of my face and it’s all singed,” says Kirby. Luckily, there wasn’t enough fuel left in the boat to cause a secondary explosion. However, despite that stroke of luck, his troubles had just begun.
When Kirby emerged from the water, he knew he was badly injured. At one point he dove back into the water and saw burnt skin tear off his leg when it hit the sand. He ran to shore and took a shower to wash off the wounds, then called his mother for help.
Jensen recalls the thoughts that circled through his head as he embarked on a 45-minute boat trip to a hospital: “I was like, ‘Am I going to live? Am I going to live but not be able to surf again? Am I going to have to get an amputation on one of my body parts, because of an infection?’ I didn’t know how bad it was going to be. Then I also had a thought of, ‘Am I going to die?’”
“It was pretty crazy. I was getting mentally prepared to not be alive anymore. It’s a crazy, crazy thing to experience.”
The hospital turned out to be less well equipped than they had hoped, but Jensen was at least able to get some medicine and have his wounds dressed. He slept there for a night, then managed to find a ticket to fly out the following day. “Once I hopped in to the plane the next day, that’s when I knew I was going to be okay,” says Kirby.
The flight took him to Padang, where he boarded another plane to Kuala Lumpur. There, his mother met him and took him to a hospital. After receiving treatment, he flew back to his home in Perth, where he spent another three days in hospital.
“They were pretty shocked that I was as good as I was. I only had 12-13% burns all over me,” he says. Despite the extent of his injuries, Kirby managed to avoid eye or airway burns and didn’t need any skin grafts.
Now, Kirby is back at home, resting, editing videos and recovering. Doctors told him that, while it will be about three to four weeks until he’s healed, it will be years before his skin fully recovers, during which time he’ll have to be extra careful about any sun exposure.
Kirby is taking it in stride, though. “I’ll look like an idiot, but I don’t care, because I’m alive, so that’s all that matters.”
