Photo: Makai McNamara // Instagram
The McNamara family received some much-needed good news Thursday. Makai McNamara, who’d suffered a life-threatening wipeout at Pipeline on Sunday and spent much of this week in a coma, is now awake. Or as his father Liam put it when he shared the news on social media, “Makai is back!”
“Aloha. Good morning, everyone. As most of you know, four days ago, Makai had a very severe wipeout at Pipeline, and thanks to the lifeguards and Eli and brother Landon and everyone involved — there’s a lot of people involved. I can’t wait to thank those people personally — but I’m here to tell you that Makai is back,” he said. “He’s talking, 100-percent coherent. He’s gonna be pissed when he sees his video. All your prayers, all your thoughts, all the energy help, I want to thank you guys very much. Makai is back. He’s talking. He’s being a little stickler, asking when he can go home. He’s doing amazing. God is real. Prayers are real. Life is precious. Love you guys. Thank you very much. Our family thanks you very much. Aloha.”
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The wipeout at Pipe happened on Sunday morning. McNamara was knocked unconscious and North Shore lifeguards and other surfers immediately jumped into the impact zone to rescue him. One of those surfers was Eli Olson, who explained that McNamara had been underwater for two minutes by the time he’d gotten to him.
“First thing, I just wanted to get his head above water. I gave him a couple breaths, tried to give him a couple compressions,” he said. “We were getting hit by waves out here. It was a lot bigger yesterday than it is today. It took a few minutes, because we were getting recycled in the waves. Then we got him in. Lifeguards did another round of CPR compressions, and he started coughing up water.”
McNamara was then taken to Queens Hospital where medical personnel induced a coma that lasted three days.
The fact that Makai isn’t just awake but “100 percent coherent,” is incredible news for the North Shore surfing community.
