This past January, 25-year-old pro surfer Ricky Whitlock of Carlsbad, California waxed his board and hit the waves as part of warm-up for the Volcom Pipeline Pro surf championship on Oahu’s famed North Shore.
Moments later, a simple error in monster surf turned everything upside down.
As crowds watched set after set of waves topple the world’s best surfers along the ferocious Banzai Pipeline, Whitlock paddled hard for a small eight-foot wave, popped upright on his board and headed back up into the barrel.
Slightly behind the swell, he was crushed by the wave’s lip, and abruptly tumbled into dangerously shallow water.
Wipeouts are nothing new to big wave riders, but as soon as Whitlock fell headlong into the reef, and got crushed by the wave, he knew something had gone terribly wrong.
“I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m paralyzed,’” Whitlock says.
Two fractured L-1 and T-12 vertebrae, and months of rehabilitation, left him with an uncertain future in surfing. Courage and dedication restored him.
The story of his recovery efforts, and miraculous return to surfing in just a few short months, are the subject of “Ricky Whitlock: L-1, T-12” – a new documentary film by creative agency Type G, directed by Timothy A. Ryan.
