"All those guys that hit their heads hard at Pipe? I betcha they don’t feel a hundred percent. They may never feel one hundred percent.”
Yesterday, the big-waver Jamie Mitchell woke up, saw a photo of himself kneeling on the back of a jetski’s sled after a wipeout at Jaws two months ago that ripped open his wetsuit on the seabed and shook his brain into a concussion, and wrote an IG post about his feelings.
Hands up for some more punishment… 🤔 In the heat of battle the answer was yes. Looking back the answer should of been NO.
Concussions are no joke and it’s something i think not just big wave surfers but all surfers have to deal with and look at seriously for the future of there brain health 🙏
I’ve still been struggling with some issues since my Jaws wipeout and also seeing @live.fast.die.old struggles as well i think it’s important to look at and understand what these wipeouts may mean for the future generations. Just a thought 👍
Long-term exposure to surfing can lead to depression?
It’s a matter worth investigating.
I called Jamie, who’s just turned forty-three, whom Kelly Slater calls “one of the greatest unknown sportsmen of all time”, at Sunset Beach where he lives with his wife and two kids.
First of all, Jamie says that for the past couple of weeks he’d been having these “weird head rushes, like I was drunk.”
Was it, he wondered, a delayed reaction to the Jaws wipeout and the subsequent concussion?
Was it something that affected other surfers?
“I felt like I needed to post about it, it was a gut feeling. Could it be an important issue in the future?” he says. “With my little experience, then Albee in the Jaws contest, he’s had some real tough times as well, he’s still dealing with it and then I was speaking to Kohl Christenson about it, then Billy Kemper was nearly knocked out in Morocco. You know, it made me wonder. When will we, as surfers, look at concussion and what it’s doing to us.”
How did Albee’s wipeout affect him?
“Albee had a real bad one, man, he was vomiting after the wipeout. He had a really severe concussion. I don’t think he’s been doing too much surfing. He’s definitely been struggling a lot worse than I have been so, you know, it sucks to see. If he was to go out and have a bad wipeout now, what would that mean for him? I think he’s still feels a little bit off-balance, a little off. He did tow into Jaws and then he posted that he would’ve have done it and that it was lucky he didn’t fall.”
In a recent IG post Albee wrote: “I have to wear a helmet and can’t last very long but got a glimmer of hope. Might not be this winter but there will be a day where it all comes together… or not, might just end up broken and brain dead…”
The danger ain’t just in big waves.
“How many times in small waves have you fallen the wrong way and you whiplash your head and you get that flash or the stars? It happens a lot. I don’t think we realise that these concussions or mini-concussions maybe add up over your life of surfing. I don’t get depressed a lot, there’s always been highs and lows, but I do tend to get little depressive thoughts more than ever. Is there a correlation to wiping out?”
Jamie’s got an open mind on the subject. Maybe depression isn’t a side-effect of wipeouts but part of the game of chasing big waves.
“You go through adrenalin highs chasing swells then you go through an adrenalin dump. If it’s a good consistent season, and you’re surfing big waves twice a month, sometimes I’ll find myself being a little bummed out. And I do feel like it’s happening more and more. But is it just life? Getting older? It’s an issue the NFL is finding out about. It might be nice to have a study on it, get surfers who’ve been concussed tested or at least get people talking about it. Look at what happened to Owen? Look at what happened to Dusty? All those guys that hit their heads hard at Pipe? I betcha they don’t feel a hundred percent. They may never feel one hundred percent.”
Jamie thinks back to his own belting at Jaws.
“After that wipeout I wasn’t really coherent. I wasn’t feeling good. I wasn’t seeing straight. But I was frantically looking for my escort boat to get another board. Reflecting on that, dude, that should’ve been it for me. I got lucky. I had another bad wipeout because I was already concussed and fell off on a wave I should’ve made. The photo made me reflect on that and if someone sees my post, sees that I admit I shouldn’t have gone back out, but it’ll make others think more before they do it again.”
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NonJohn has been suffering depression since his last IG post only got 37 likes. I know exactly how bro feels.
We all get rocked, some of us a bit more and frequently. Also as we get older it is important to do cognitive exercises like puzzles, reading and understanding a book, maybe some math, hell even if you take a stupid night class for no other reason than stimulation it may help. Once that bell is rung , it is rung ,but exercises in comprehension and problem solving will keep you alert and let you know just how far gone you are and it also will build mental confidence.
Thank you, a great article
My wife went through a serious brain injury And the biggest problem is that the recovery ebbs and flows. One week they getting better next week they backwards. Doctors said that it is normal recovery and u need to be prepared to wait it out. Maybe they just need to see a proper consultant. Pro Surfers can be dumb cunts some times.
A bad man outside a bar gave me concussion with his fists after my girlfriend picked a fight with him. What an odd feeling it is, everything that was once so orderly in your brain suddenly becomes scattered.
Good piece D. Actual meat on the bone. I don’t mean that facetiously.
That was one of the confusing things about what happened with Owen, there didn’t seem to be any follow up or further consideration of concussion’s effects on surfers who’d suffered bad wipeouts in big waves. Now people are regularly paddling and towing surf in the 40-60’ range, I bet we start seeing more and more of it.
I wonder what sort of damage a wipeout in giant waves causes, say one where no direct hit happened?
Seems like there are multiple types of concussions surfers need to think about.
1.Impact. Where the head slaps water, or lip ,reef or board hits head.
2. Ragdolling . Severe wipeout where the brain is sloshed around violently back and forth against the skull.
3. Compression. Where the psi increase in water, such as being suddenly pushed 20 ft underwater,(or air in a barrel) may have an effect.
Number 3 is something I’ve thought about,but I’m not really sure exists or not. People do get their eardrums “blown out” in surfing, so there is serious pressure differentials going on. I dunno. Thoughts anyone?
I blew an eardrum in Sumatra while still standing on my board in a barrel that envelopped around me. It blew as I was still on my feet. It wasn’t even big — barely overhead. Your theory holds…uh, sorry…water.
wow…was it a sealed closeout or open door? ( insert famous penguin/ blown seal joke here)
Seriously though, impacts are much worse, but perhaps the cumulative effects of ragdolling and closeouts may have long term effects.
BeachGrit article coming up.
Are closeout beach breaks bad for your mental health?
Wouldn’t know. Never surfed sand. Ask another joker.
haha…the Moss got you good
Yep. Got my ass handed to me one day with Big Bird and Nach when I was 16. Last chance for sand!
WSL needs a concussion protocol in place. Otherwise they are exposed. More importantly I want to see it in place to help the surfers. Jamie could have easily died.
We also need to get over the stigma of helmets. I am confident that guys like you and your brother, both with such a big, credible voices, will help push things in that direction if you are not doing so already.
yeah I am a fan of the drive toward good quality safety gear, I actually think it will be the accessory move in the next decade across the sport, not just for the 40-60′ crew.
This is a very good point, and couldn’t agree with you more. The WSL should absolutely be on top of this, and concussion protocols should be put in place right behind water safety. Successive concussions can get serious, sometimes even fatal in younger age groups. 14-16 yr. olds competing at Pipe. Yowza
Hope for the best for Mitchell and props for shining light on the issue. Its really easy to get a concussion surfing, even in small surf. A simple rail pop to my jaw caused whiplash enough to give me a mild concussion. The sucky part was I didn’t recognize the symptoms and hit my head again at work the following week while carrying a booster pump and looking down, and didnt see the steel bar that I drove the top of my head into! That one really did a number and I ended up at ER.
Symptoms- Huge pupils that freaked my wife out, not remembering where or what the fuck I did that day. Insomnia and super fatigued, extremely irritable, extreme sensitivity to light and sounds, forget things like simple words you’ve said millions of times, forget what you did the past week including the damn whack to the head that got you there, paranoia, confused about basic shit. It was bad for about 2 weeks then gradually got better. About two months went by before I finally felt normal. Supposedly molecular hydrogen tablets dissolved in water are really good if you get head trauma.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.go…
That is very interesting… molecular hydrogen in drinking water for head trauma. Thanks for sharing!
I too had two successive concussions. Not fun. PCS for the better part of a year and a half. Essentially 2 years until I felt 100% again though. Just have to try and stay away from them now.
Best to you and try not to hit the noggin! I got to the point of seriously considering wearing a dang helmet after the second hit to the head in a week. The old school football place kicker helmet with one bar would’ve been appropriate for me
Last week I fell from the lip of a 6ft wave onto my head and have felt slow ever since, loud sounds especially feel more irritating
Bummer! The sound sensitivity sucks. I was at the point where basic shit like the cat jumping off a table would startle the fuck outta me. Be super careful you dont crack your head in the slightest way while you heal. An ice pack on the head and headphones with chill music helps. That molecular hydrogen stuff didnt have any noticeable effects but I guess its beneficial in the ling run. Hope you recover quickly!
Thanks mate!
Ironic that my pop ups on the top of screen are inviting me to a NY mental health rehab Centre.
I’ve had a couple concussions and I’ve felt dumber after each one. My memory is shot for sure, and I’m definitely a little quicker to snap when I’m pissed or upset. I find myself spending five minutes searching my brain for an everyday word like drawer in conversation, and my concussions weren’t even that bad. A lot of my friends that grew up playing hockey or football are a completely different person now than when we were younger and they’ve all had insane amounts of concussions. When you have a brain injury you kill brain cells, and once those cells are done they’re done, you don’t make new ones. post concussion syndrome is no joke and the worse your head gets hit the worse it gets, it can turn into CTE. it totally changes you as a person, makes you aggressive suicidal emotionally stunted etc. it’s the hardest thing to bounce back from because you can see a broken leg, but with your head you tend to feel better before you’re actually better, and most people end up overdoing it again too early. I’ll get off my soap box, but moral of the story how much risk is worth the reward ya know? it’s all subjective I guess, to each their own
Same story here. That not finding words thing is trippy and annoying!
Too many big gaggers
Haha, not enough!
it’s the worst! I’ve never used a thesaurus so much in my life
Some things in life Id be glad to forget completely but the concussion thing made it so I couldn’t remember anything. Especially annoying trying to work and people saying “I told you that a day ago” or “you were at my house fixing our well pump last week” and I could not remember any of it! I had to gi through notes, google maps, texts and whatever just to put the pieces together.
I’m rarely able keep up with classwork on time because I’ll straight up forget that I even have an assignment let alone when it’s due. I’ll leave my night class and by the next morning I’ll forget everything I just consumed. maybe one day ill get the hang of organizing my thoughts !
Not good. I know what you’re going through. You may try Neurotalk: https://www.neurotalk.org/t…. It helped when I had my own experience with PCS.
thank you!
I have CRS (can’t remember shit) + ADHD. Learning “Getting Things Done” (Robert Allen) and applying it using these 2 apps: Things 3 + Evernote (synced to my computer + iphone) has completely changed my life and saved my career.
I’m no longer 100% likely to forget due dates, appointments, bills to pay, clients to follow up with etc. etc. The brain isn’t designed to be a file cabinet / calendar / alarm clock, so delegate all that important work to a fail-safe system instead.
There’s a cool $100 course I took that really organizes it nicely: https://learn.fortelabs.co/…
But if you don’t want to drop a c-note here’s a semi bootlegged summary:
Read this article first: https://hamberg.no/gtd (Summary of Getting Things Done)
Then this podcast: https://evernote.com/blog/t…
Using Things 3 app for GTD: https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Best of luck to you
wow thank you so much!
Yep. Hit my head a few times playing footy. Last game I played, got the classic innocuous tackle that bumped my head into the turf. Got up a little wobbly. (“Haha, you looked like a baby giraffe”). At the time I was dirty about our sneaky rover grabbing the ball out of my hands and playing on, thus robbing me of a ‘stat’.
Played the game out, but don’t remember much of it. Mainly the other injuries I picked up. Was told about some significant contributions, but nup, nothing there for me. Since then, depression has become a bigger part of my life. I think it was always there, but easier to recover from. Where now, it seems to really grab hold and linger.
Noticing the struggle to find words/remember events/people is just perplexing when it was something I prided my self on. (And I just picked up a gig doing some part time lecturing at the local uni, so I might have to learn a few more big words)…
But, and this is really the main thing, we won the game.
Get well, brother! Shit is a drag and yeah, when you’re in the moment its easy to tough it out. Its those wee hours when your mind is racing and thinking all the bad shit and cant settle it down. The one thing that helps is recognizing whats causing it and some good indica. That’s two, sorry and congrats in the win!
This is way late but I get it regarding depression. What has worked for me in these, my later years (just turned 59) is a natural supplement called Kratom. There are 4 or so strains and what has worked for me is the Meng Da or red strain. 1 gram morning,noon and bedtime and the effects were noticeable almost immediately. Hope you see this and try it.
I also tried 3 different anti depressants (zoloft, prozac, and 1 other) each for several months and nothing worked except Kratom. Research this supplement and you’ll find that thousands have found it successful.
Well put. Only need to look at a guy like Antonio Brown, ex NFL wide receiver, who at 31yo is all up and down with his Twitter chatter on a regular basis. He’ll be reflective and apologetic one day and the next he’s yelling at cops and screaming at his kids then calling out the NFL suits like it’s all their fault for his downfall. Poor guy prob has early onset CTE and doesnt even realize it
absolutely, it’s so hard to know because it can’t be diagnosed until after you pass. I think we all should be a little more forgiving with our brains and give enough time to rest before getting back on the horse
This is way late but I get it regarding depression. What has worked for me in these, my later years (just turned 59) is a natural supplement called Kratom. There are 4 or so strains and what has worked for me is the Meng Da or red strain. 1 gram morning,noon and bedtime and the effects were noticeable almost immediately. Hope you see this and try it.
Nothing but respect for this guy. And reading BG leads to long-term depression.
No, no, anti-depressive. It’s our tagline.
Pay 2 play
Maybe it’s time for the WSL to make wearing a helmet mandatory in certain conditions. It was good to see an increase in the amount of surfers wearing helmets during the Volcom pipe event.
One need only wander into the BG comment section to see the danger of too many bumps on the head.
I purposely bang my head on the desk in my cubicle everyday. Unsure if the depression is caused by concussions, or working 8 hours in a cubicle.
Sean Dollar had an interview years ago and said his brain looked like a football player.
sean dollar is fucking gnarly
Hey so what about WSL breaking their big wave wunderkind on their first official “At Large” mission to Morocco? How was the pay structure working for those fellas? Cuz it sure seems a lot of risk…
Maybe it’s possible there’s something perversely damaging in the extraordinary thrills and adrenalin/dopamine of big wave surfing alone, even without the head knocks. Much like some war vets come back struggling to readjust to civillian life after the intensity of combat (even without classic PTSD), or faded rockstars & grownup child stars struggle with ‘normal’ life etc – because their equilibrium has been thrown out of whack in comparison to dizzying and heightened rushes of experience. Higher the highs etc…
Yeah. Another aspect to consider. It may be a multiplier though.
I started selling insurance(because no forced working hours) one of the year end big deal sales prizes was a trip to San Diego. People were jazzed the fuck up about it. I literally had just gotten back from running a contest at Ocean Beach Pier during a pumping swell. An experience, which while fun, does not rate very high on my scale of exciting adventures Ive had during my surf industry career.
Basically from the average traveling surfer to the normal everyday corporate slog, there is a massive valley of mindset. I really cant grasp how a lot of my coworkers function and it regularly leaves me feeling extraordinarily out of place.
You try to explain to people what its like to witness 30ft sets crashing so hard on the reef it shakes the ground under your feet, or even just the simple act of cracking open a fresh coconut because you are thirsty and it just recently fell. But you get used to things like that and normal life is just fuck all boring
Whether its Wanchese NC or Haiku HI. We all got to look in the mirror..
Made me think of this for some reason: https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Being an average Joe ain’t as easy as it looks.
Yeah, that’s what Mitcho is wrestling with: is it brain-shakes or adrenalin dumps? Or both?
probs bit from column A, bit from column B
A few questions go unanswered?
If you choose a career in a dangerous sport who other than yourself is to blame for a injury?
If you want to be tested should you pay for it yourself?
Should we start a BG GoFundMe page for well paid professional surfers?
And second, if your scared or injured there is at a minimum 10 thousand other surfers who will happily take your sponsorship and give it a red hot crack.
If you don’t like or can’t do your job.
Leave ; don’t cry me a River ffs over your own personal choices and the results.
Pretty sure if you made one the waves it be a all victory interview instead of victim, poor me
Big talk.
The visceral realisation of fragility and mortality is one of the more profound understandings that a mature human gains. Sooner or later.
Oh, so nobody can talk about serious injuries like concussions? Grow up
Not suggesting it can’t be talked about just imo if you put yourself in that situation that’s where the buck stops.
Take personal responsibility for your action rather than relying on some professional organisation to look after your safety .
I think all of these surfers know what’s at stake. These guys would be doing this shit league or not. The buck does not stop with the surfer in a professional event. Both parties have financial interests – the WSL makes money off the surfers, the surfers make money from being featured on the WSL platform.
A professional organization must help with looking after the safety of their league members. If not they certainly can be held liable in a court of law, so there is very much a financial incentive for the WSL to put some sort of protocol in place. Fear of litigation is exactly why the NFL now has a concussion protocol in place – you have to protect people from themselves. An NFL player is wired to push the injury aside and keep playing, health be damned. But that has opened up litigation against the league, and the NFL has worked to get in front of that as quickly as possible. It would serve the WSL wisely to get some sort of protocol in place, or I guarantee you they will face lawsuits and be held at least partially liable.
If WSL had a certified doctor on board to check for concussion, Jamie may have been pulled back from paddling back out where he admitted he should not have. It does not sound like complaining to me – it sounds like surfers are becoming more aware and opening up the dialogue.
As someone who has suffered a couple major concussions and countless smaller ones, I am glad to see this convo come up. It’s serious business. I am also glad to see more helmets being worn. at the more dangerous spots, and I hope this trend continues, especially for the young kids. Silver lining – helmets have plenty of open endorsement space.
It’s about creating awareness.
I don’t think he blamed anybody. I think like the nfl, an athlete is bringing up the question of ego vs safety because you know the audience isn’t going to do it on its own. I can only imagine the pressure these guys feel to push themselves whether it’s within their ranks, the industry, on social media or whatever. It’s probably a heathy check for the professional big wave / slab hunting community In general. These guys are kind of in a world of their own and you have to figure it’s up to them, as it’s always been, to look out for their own safety. Floatation vests, helmets, water patrol, none of these would have happened without some kind of discussion and consequently neither would psycho paddle in tubes at Jaws.
With all this talk about CTE, you’d have to wonder how culpable OJ would have been – had he done it
Don’t drop the soap and don’t smoke no dope.
He did do it ha ha.
Daughter got minor concussion last week on metal play eqpt.
Doc says one of the biggest issues is repeated concussions, esp before previous has healed.
Amazing to think about our electric jelly, sitting there in a bath of watery goop, inside a little bone box, and getting so easily shaken up that it smashes against walls causing bleeding. We are funny little animals aren’t we?
Similar to dropping fone
It’s never the same