"I just remember feeling weightless and it taking a really long time to come down."
The Californian surf photographer Ryan Moss is recovering at the Queens Trauma Center in Honolulu after snapping his spine during one of the most filmed, and commented, moments in recent surf history.
Moss was shooting the thirty-foot swell on the back of a ski piloted by pro surfer Cam Richards from South Carolina when they, along with a flotilla of other water bikes, watched the horizon turn black.
Hit the vid below, drag slider to two minutes.
Note: The white ski ain’t Moss and Richards.
In an excellent interview with Magic Seaweed, Moss describes being caught inside and the aftermath of the impact.
“I just remember feeling weightless and it taking a really long time to come down. I didn’t know or realise how fast Cam sent us over the lip of that thing.
“There was no handle on the ski, so I couldn’t stand up and hold on and hoped my legs would have absorbed some of the impact. So I was just sitting on the back with a death grip on the leather seat. Next thing I know I heard a loud thud and it felt like the ski buckled in half.
“Along with that my back sent a shooting pain and tingling feeling from my waist down to my feet. I remember saying “fuck, fuck, fuck”, I’m paralysed. I legitimately thought I was.
Cam Richards, meanwhile, got sucked over the falls with another ski.
“Cam if you’re reading this, I hope you’re all good and in good health,” Moss said from his hospital bed.
