Watch: Dusty Payne in “They had to rebuild me!”

Lovely documentary of former pro surfer whose head was caved in by Backdoor Pipe… 

Nineteen eighty-eight was a helluva year. It birthed world title shots Jordy Smith and Julian Wilson and, perhaps most importantly since he’s the subject of this story here, that ol pussy-eating, red-haired devil himself Dusty Payne. 

Dusty, if you’ll recall, was lucky to make it this far.

In January, he went over the falls and was massaged, face first, into the Backdoor reef. He busted his jaw, fractured his skull, was knocked unconscious and spent three waves underwater. Pals pulled up him up by his leash and he was resuscitated on the beach.

Watch that here. (A good lesson in what to do in case of accident etc.)

Earlier this month, Surfer magazine and Volcom partnered on a lovely semi-short (it’s twenty minutes long) that follows “Payne before his near-fatal wipeout as he competed and freesurfed his way through Portugal and scored all-time sessions with friends back home in Hawaii. We also captured the wave that nearly spelled the end for Payne and the months-long battle he fought to return to the water.”

I think it would be correct to say that Dusty isn’t the most articulate of interviews. There are no startling revelations of life beyond the grave or fabulous epiphanies, but the story of having his head caved in, along with drone footage of the rescue, with Dusty unconscious and unbreathing on the beach, will make most us blanche a little.

And who doesn’t want to be blanched to the colour of moonstones?

Watch here!