"See him catching a wave, on the water with the sun on his back. Picture him happy, healthy and loved."
On April 29, the world champ and six-time Triple Crown winner Sunny Garcia, was found unconscious at his home in Oregon, almost dead, and presumably by his own hand.
On the day Sunny was found, he posted this.
Three weeks later, despite a general pessimism from doctors, Sunny was breathing on his own and responding to stimuli.
Now, according to his daughter Kaila, Sunny, who is forty-nine, has been moved from ICU in Portland to a hospital in California and will go under what’s called VAT or video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery on his lungs.
In the old days, like, until the early nineties, surgeons would go in with a saw to get through the sternum. Now, the procedure is minimally invasive, less risk and so on.
Good news for Sunny who got his nickname from a mama who delighted in her little boy’s elevated spirit.
Kaila writes:
“Bring to mind a happy memory of my dad @sunnygarcia. See him catching a wave, on the water with the sun on his back. Picture him happy, healthy and loved. Send that picture of Sunny as healthy and loved as a prayer and a reminder to Sunny. When you breathe out send that happy picture with your love to My dad @sunnygarcia. Please join us in doing this once a day for the next month.”
Then again. Just being in hospital and non-ambulatory often leads to pneumonia. My not be directly related to the cause of his predicament. To others bagging, yes he was young and hot-headed, but he matured and learned. Much like many of us. Wish him and his family well.
hahahahha! amazing! hahaha
Sorry, go back to Nascar, I should’ve said
Go to Nascar, Alec Eiffel
That all makes total sense. Hadn’t thought about the complications from being in the hospital for so long, or from CPR.
Death and Taxes. Fucked them both up.
Best wishes for Sunny and his family.
Yeh probably best to not write “DEATH” in permanent marker on your body. White boy Rapper; Lil Peep had “EXIT LIFE” scrawled on his bitch-ass back. The list is too Long to go into here……
He likely got a parapneumonic effusion while intubated, which is fluid sitting between the lung and the lung wall. When there is pneumonia the lung “sweats” fluid, leading to a build up of fluid in the pleura – an effusion. The pleura allows the lungs to slide smoothly over the chest wall and organs. Imagine a plastic bag fully deflated, one surface on the lungs the other on the chest wall – it is a potential space. This potential space can fill with fluid (effusion), blood (haemothorax), or air (pneumothorax or punctured lung).
When you have fluid from a parapneumonic effusion, it starts out sterile but can become infected, called an empyema – basically the whole lung becomes encased in pus, and becomes very sticky. It won’t heal unless you drain it and clean it out, and often you need to break down all the strings of scar tissue called loculations. If you don’t do this you get an “encased lung” where it’s scarred and can never fully re-inflate. So VATS – video assisted thorascopic surgery – is a way of using a scope to go into the pleural space – OUTSIDE the lung – between the lung and the chest wall, to remove the infected fluid, break down the loculations and allow the lung to Reinflate. Im assuming that’s why he had vats done – there are other reason but this one makes the most sense.
Thanks for taking the time and typing the great summary of what could be the reason for the procedure. Who would have thought that reading this surf gossip site could actually be quite educational.
Poor him. Like, BFD. Life is hard when you are/were a pro surfer, slapping people when you feel like it and generally lording it over everyone for no particular fucking reason until you decide to check out. Again, why all the angst?
What happens in hospitals is that medical staff don’t follow protocol, therefore the level of infection specially with long stays. 75% of infections contracted in hospital are caused by medical stuff not washing hands regularly. Welcome to the XXI century!
That’s interesting. Can you provide some evidence in support of this statement?
Are you an infectious disease specialist? An ICU physician? A medical microbiologist? Or perhaps a research statistition?
There is no doubt that hand hygiene and barrier protection protocols are important in containing the distribution of nosocomial infections within an institution there are many other factors at play.
It is a difficult one to comment on- health and illness is a personal experience. It is not my, or anyone elses, business to speculate but at the same time the family is putting information in the public space and asking for financial support through crowd funding. (How the US health system works is beyond me that an ex-pro athlete, or any citizen for that matter, has to beg for money to pay for basic health care).
As for Sunny Garcia, there is not nearly enough information in the public space to speculate as to his current condition. It doesn’t sound positive, based purely on the timeframe of the interventions (trachiostomy, PEG, VAT are invasive procedures that are usually done within the context of a patient who does not have functional control. Also moving a long stay patient (with a significant brain injury) to another hospital could be one of two things. The first is to move to a step down/rehad facility to regain active function. (I doubt this is the case – there would have been a positive statement released from the family) The other situation would be more similar to Micheal Schumacker’s. My heart goes out to his family but flrom the little bits of information being shared, it does not look all that positive. If a patient still has a trachyostomy tube to breath after 3 weeks (they are usually removed as soon as they have adaquate control of the airway) or a PEG feeding tube 3 months after admission, 62% chance of additional complications and poor outcome at 1 year. These are real statistics, from a multivariate regression model published in a peer reviewed medical journal not some comment made up in passing by an ignorant clown who thought he had some insight, because you know, the internet.
I did a stint as a suture hospital equipment rep for the biggest provider in the world. Extensive training, including surgery block. But of course they’re all cunts, and I, instead, humbly apologise to you, Oh the magnificent anonymous keyboard warrior, for your unsubstantiated percentages which are totally unrelated and do not contradict anything I have written thus far.
Signed: The ignorant clown
Not anonymous at all, my name is Tim Sluis. I am an orthopeadic surgeon, have worked in many different hospitals in 3 differrent countries and prior to specialising in hip and knee surgery I have worked in ICU’s as well as a peadiatric/neonatal ICU. Hand washing, barrier protecting and patient contact protocol’s are routine.
Neither is my comment unsubstantiated, here is the referrence:
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/con…
I did take offence at your statement that hospital staff (including me) are responsible for “75% of infections”, ostensibly due to their “failure to follow protocol”
This statement is patently untrue, unsubstantiated and casts aspersions on ‘hospital staff’. If you took the time to read my previous comment you would note that the majority of hospital aquired (nosocomial) infections are a result of/are associated with the general condition of hospitalised patients, not ‘75% from failure to follow protocol’. I backed this up with a supporting medical referrence.
Directly related to and contradicts everything you have written.
I am not a ‘keyboard worrior’ – I took the time to comment on this article and the JJF knee injury one only because I felt I could add something of interest. Probably better off not bothering.
No shit, Sherlock. So, a supposedly as much as possible sterile institution spreads infection through patients, but it’s their own fault cause they’re debilitated. Hmmm, hence why they’re in hospital. Just because you call it nosocomial doesn’t make it better. It’s only these ignorants here at Beachgrit that lap it up. Fuck off back to Inertia cunt. And learn how to spell, Dr House!
P.S: the data has changed a lot since I left, but 5 minutes with google showed that following WHO* recommendations would reduce infections up to 40%.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.go…
*not the guys from Tommy!
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
He already came out “safe” from surgery, before you posted this.
This post was 10 hours ago, this one 16 hours ago https://www.instagram.com/p…
Cmon!
Everytime I see a post from you here or STAB you’re moaning about the levels of journalism.
You know this is basically a gossip column website?
Out of interest is there any surf based news outlet that is up to your standard?
Gossip? I “Neg” your pardon!
Sorry… Gossipy.
I like to think that we can ask more to these sites and demand real journalism.
Still, I dont think the main media outlets are gossip column websites.
And yes, there’s one surf based news outlet that is up to my standard but I cannot reveal it since it will give information about myself that I dont want to give.
Thanks for the message, Negatron, I am amazed by knowing that you follow my comments.
Ahhh my nose sniffed a disgruntled insider from another news source that isn’t doing as well…
Exactly! Have a good one my dear Negatron!
Dean, I feel sad that this is your entertainment in life.
Who’s Dean?
Anybody here know how that particular surgery might indicate what Sunny is dealing with?
Sunny daughter explained he had complications after contracting pneumonia while in Portland. They needed to clean lungs… Infection maybe?
Good reminder for everyone to speak up when they are feeling fucked. Even Wiggs is here for ya. Best of luck, Sunny.
Good shout. The same goes for you when I wipe the floor with you tomorrow. Hopefully you go through in second, big brother!
I cannot wait for this heat.
Mum shoved the beads in extra deep while you were in the womb cunt. You’re fucked in the head. I’ll snap ya.
Hahahhahhahha