Them’s the breaks. Photo:Instagram/Justin Holland
When Justin Holland saw the massive storm off Antarctica brewing, he packed his gear and hopped on a plane from Queensland. The forecasts were calling for a swell of pretty epic proportions, so the 38-year-old paddleboard champion hooked up with Jamie Mitchell and headed for Gracetown and the infamous Cow Bombie. It turned out to be a trip that nearly cost him his life.
After towing into a 60-foot wave, Holland took the brunt of the lip, shattering his leg a mile-and-a-half away from shore. “It didn’t look that big at first, but it just grew and grew,” he told WAToday. “The ride started off well; it was silky smooth and I was flying down it. I started to angle back toward the breaking part of the wave. As I was starting to turn, the lip just came down on top of me.”
According to Holland, his leg snapped immediately. “The pain was excruciating,” he remembered. “Even though I’d usually hold my breath, I let out an involuntary gasp. Fortunately, I’d been testing an new type of wetsuit. I pulled the ripcord and it popped me to the surface in a second.”
Jamie Mitchell, who was manning the rescue ski at the time, couldn’t get to him before the next wave in the set broke. With a snapped femur and a half lung-full of air, there was nothing for Holland to do but wait.
“He got to me before the third one and flipped me onto the back of the jet ski. That wave was big enough to have destroyed us,” Holland said. Once the two returned to shore, Holland was taken to Margaret River Hospital, then transferred to Bunbury for surgery.
“I was pretty lucky,” he told WAToday. “The leg was shattered and the bone could have easily punctured the femoral artery. The new wetsuit has a lot of reinforcement and I think that helped keep all the broken bits stable.”
Holland is expected to make a full recovery, and Mitchell is already back in Hawaii looking for bigger waves. Holland, who currently sits in fifth place on the World Stand Up Tour, isn’t letting the wipeout deter him. “I’m ready to get back out there,” he said. “I think was just a bit unlucky with my positioning. I was actually more worried about sharks, being the only one out there in the water.”
