A surfer found unconscious at SF’s Ocean Beach last week has died, his family said. https://t.co/bsCmQ1xWFA
— SFGATE (@SFGate) November 13, 2023
Sometimes the ocean takes away at the most innocuous of times. Kirby Lee died on November 6 from injuries sustained four days earlier while surfing Ocean Beach in San Francisco. Lee was 54.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, sometime before noon on November 2, Lee was found unconscious in the water. Fellow surfers brought him to the beach near the intersection of the Great Highway and Ortega. There, they immediately began to administer CPR. Soon afterwards, paramedics arrived and rushed Lee to UCSF Medical Center, where he was put on life support.
SFFD beach and surf rescue units are working to revive a surfer pulled from the water on Ocean Beach near Great Highway and Ortega. Emergency vehicles are on Great Highway, use caution. pic.twitter.com/Sa1PxXj77S
— SAN FRANCISCO FIRE DEPARTMENT MEDIA (@SFFDPIO) November 2, 2023
It’s still not clear what exactly transpired before Lee was found unconscious. Though Ocean Beach has a reputation for being a fearsome wave, there were no indications of adverse conditions. “Ocean Beach can be a very rough, treacherous beach for people who aren’t experienced surfers, but that apparently wasn’t the case on that day,” fellow surfer Jose Lopez said. In fact, Jose and others described the conditions as uncharacteristically small for the often thunderous beachbreak. Lee was also an experienced surfer and wearing a helmet at the time, according to others at the scene.
Doctors also didn’t find any other medical conditions that could explain what happened. “They ruled out heart attack, they ruled out stroke, there were no injuries, nothing on the outside of his body that indicated he had been hit by his board and knocked unconscious, nothing,” Lee’s sister, Sabrina Umphress, told the Chronicle. “We asked the doctors so many times. It sounded like they were very thorough. It’s a mystery.”
“Kirby is much loved and will be forever missed,” Mark Lee, Kirby Lee’s brother, wrote in an email. “He was a great brother, father, friend, and colleague. Kirby lived a great life, but he had so much more to give.”
