"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…”
https://www.instagram.com/p/B8WvdZbFRHC/
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.”
