Surfer Repair

By the time the story finally reaches the last townie, I am sure it will be EPIC and of mythical proportions, because that is how all good surf stories go.

My role is pretty small actually, but I think its entertaining enough to write about.

Sunday morning, I decided to go into town and treat myself to a mocha. It was a glorious weekend here, so bright and sunny. As I was walking back to the car with my friend and neighbor Barbie, we noticed that the water near the pier was full of surfers and some pretty awesome waves. So we decided to walk out to the pier to watch for a while, and enjoy a little sun. One of the things that always brings a smile to my face about watching surfers is how it spans generations, races and genders (still more boyz than girlz though). It is so cool to see the older folks out there and the small kids getting braver and everyone smiling.

I digress.

When we were really ready to go, I stopped to throw my cup in the trash and as I did so, I noticed one of our friends sitting on the retaining wall. He looked kind of out of it and as we got closer we could see that he was injured and bleeding. Turns out that the night before a bunch of locals had road tripped north to a secret spot and he got into a thrashing fight with a reef, puncturing his suit and making a gnarly hole in his leg. Not pretty.

He was clearly in shock, and not looking very well. Having done a lot of first aid in my life and knowing these guys only go to the doctor if strapped to a freakin stretcher, we offered to get the wound cleaned and get him to some kind of health care professional.

Wound cleaning consisted of peroxide, warm water and the most important item: beer for the patient. I am not the most sqeamish person, but I can honestly say that I about passed out, that hole was nasty, skin just isn't supposed to look like that. While doing this, the patient was trying to get a hold of a fellow local who is not only a die hard surfer but also an ER doctor. More proof that my town is small, we flagged the doc down on the road!!!!! And not only did he stop, he couldn't have been nicer!

Doctor gave us props for the clean up, called in a prescription for antibiotics because there looked to be an infection starting already (lots of bacteria in the ocean, don't you know) and told us to bandage him up. We did so and then dropped him off at a friends house for more beer painkillers and of course the Raiders game (we won, oh ya!!) .

A few hours later, I stopped to check on him. The story had already grown, and presently includes things like: "Dude, I was in the water another hour after I got pummled" ; "I surfed one more perfect barrel before I called it quits" ; "I might have died if the girls hadn't come along when they did, I couldn't even feel my leg" yada, yada, yada....

And a new local surf legend is born!