Tragic.
On Saturday afternoon a surfer died after a collision with another surfer at Southern California’s famed Rincon. The VC Star reports that Gerald “Gerry” Gilhool Jr., 51, an Ojai resident, had been out enjoying the run of large swell when the accident occurred around mid-day. Witnesses said he was up and riding down the line when he hit someone attempting to “roll” under the wave.
The other surfer had his head and nose cut by Gilhool’s fin. Gilhool went down but his wipeout did not seem remarkable.
Other surfers, watching the situation and seeing Gilhool was in trouble paddled him to shore on his board and provided medical aid until Ventura County firefighters arrived.
They also performed CPR while requesting a helicopter, saying the patient was in cardiac arrest.
He was taken by ambulance to Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura where he was pronounced dead.
Gilhool worked as a tour manager for the band Dawes, whose lead singer is married to the famous actress/singer Mandy Moore. She eulogized her friend on Instagram, writing, “Gerry was a towering presence and personality and if you were lucky enough to be in his orbit and you were a friend, his loyalty and love knew no bounds.”
He is survived by his young son.
A notable local pro told me, when reached for comment, that “The crowds (at Rincon) have been out of hand and there are tons and tons of people dropping in on everyone.”
Another local surfboard shaper, Jacob Elis, took to Instagram asking for answers. “Yo! Trying to get in touch with Rincon surfer named Augie or Aggie. He was involved in a collision with my friend Gerry Saturday midday. Gerry is dead, now. We need the other side of the story.”
An extremely unfortunate side effect of surfing’s exploding popularity.
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Gerry was a f**kin’ cool dude, knew how to surf also!
these are a few surfpix of a dude i consider a ‘friend’, now gone.
Pic below, well i’m shootin’ with a 24~105mm lens, tryin’ to get shots of “Painted Ladies” as they migrate,
seen some fun waves, nobody out at Thee PT, ’til Gerry paddled out + rode alone:
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Gerry, on a fun 1!
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3 more images of Gerry, in just a few seconds. as he rode,
before he then had to deal with ‘inside traffic’ in Los Angeles, which he did, b4 kickin’ out”
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good~bye, friend!
randy
Remarkable that a spot like Rincon has no life-saving resources allocated. Surely a spot that gets so good you can’t/won’t/don’t surf it without the rest of the tribe.
Sad story…. hope more comes to light, perhaps hit his head and drowned before others could get to him?
It is well known and established in our sport that the wave rider always has the right of way.
Condolences to the friends and family.
The Queen has been an overrun shit show for 30 plus years now and unfortunately joins the like of most lineups today which have become unable to self-regulate due to the “I have my rights” litigious society that we’ve become. The sad irony being that pro surfing’s CEO is actually the poster child of that very problem.
So he got ran over an died? Or had a heart attack?
I grew up with Gerry on the east coast, known each other since we were in our teens. He was competent in and out of the water. We recently reconnected after almost 3 decades and I was so happy for his success in his adult life(we were both wretched angsty teens in the early 80’s) I’m still in shock after I found out late last night.
I fear immensely this story will become a fill the surf spot in the blank, fill the name of the deceased in the blank, and file on surf media. Here in Jersey, where the water seems far far colder than recent waters, the crowds are unreal. Truly, there was very little reprieve from the summer (Central Jersey at least). Day of the week, time of day, swell angle, wind, size of swell just do not matter right now. Duck-diving, paddling away from the peak, giving way to someone else’s priority are completely foreign concepts. It appears as well, WaveStorms are beginning to be equaled to VALS now on noseriders, eggs, and funshapes.
P____ M___’s wife told me the crowds in Santa Cruz have exploded because of Covid and just population in general.
Piers Morgan?
Paris Milton?
Peelon Musk?
Prime Minister
It’s everywhere. I counted a hundred people in the water at a gutless wave in Bolinas called the patch. Nobody even surfed it in the eighties.
Well nobody’s working or going to school, so they go surf. H____ told me surf shops are booming these days. Not everyone is suffering because of Covid. There’s a lobster and oyster place in Malibu that is making bank.
All the kids that would normally be on the high school swim team or playing water polo took up surfing. They seem happy with their marshmallow rail wave storms and don’t seem to be progressing to fiberglass boards and paddling out at OB.
I think the conditions north of Santa Cruz will keep them in check , but places like Pleasure Point seem ruined.
I don’t understand why people don’t get chomped every other day at Bolinas.
That place screams “shark!” to me.
I did a story on a guy named Lee Fontan who got bit there about 10 years ago or so.
One minute he was surfin’, the next he was taking a helicopter ride all the way to Castro Valley, for some reason.
I had a false sense of security because the water was always murky. I figured they wouldn’t be able to see me. Bolinas didn’t worry me too much, but anywhere north of there like Point Reyes scared me. It had to be perfect at those spots for me to paddle out. I had some of the best sessions of my life there but could never relax in the lineup.
Shark attacks are vibration, almost always. Not sight, or smell.
Not blood in the water.
Not women on their periods.
Of all the shark attack victims I’ve interviewed, the bloke or chica who gets attacked is the one who moved: Either turned to paddle for a wave, or caught a wave and is paddling back out.
Murky don’t enter into it, although might have something to do with mistaken identity.
But sharks aren’t zeroing in on what they can see or smell, they are zeroing in on whatever is vibrating their Ampullae of Lorenzini.
So you’re not safe.
None of youse.
Move to Idaho.
Too many people in the water.
It’s only going to get worse.
Very sad for this guy’s circle. Bummer.
You are right. Spring can be so hollow, all that sand..break something if you hit. Your spot is just as bad too!
This is a very odd story Chas, or is it just the way you’ve written the incident description ?
Surely the ‘other’ surfer (Augie, Aggie) would’ve been easy to identify on the beach if he was the one who received a cut to the head and nose from the now deceased Gilhools’ board, in the way you describe the incident.
I’m not trying to make light of such an awful situation, but it just seems odd that the injured surfer wasn’t the one getting medical assistance after Gilhool ran him over…
The only thing I can think of is if the paddler submerged part of his board trying to go under the wave which caused it to shoot out and hit the rider in the head or neck after the paddler lost his grip. I can’t think of anything else that would cause the rider to get hurt more than the paddler.
I’m sure we’ll learn more about it with time. Really sad story all around.
Maybe when the rider fell, he gulped in water, started to drown and went into cardiac arrest.
I’ve slammed pretty hard out there on a head high day. Maybe he hit his head on the bottom or on his board, too.
Or the collision startled him/shocked his system bad enough that it triggered a fatal/near fatal cardiac event. A surfer drowned in Ventura at the beginning of the year and the COD was a cardiac event first that led to a drowning.
Heart issues was my guess. I’ve had everything under the sun (and moon) happen there, (its about the only place I surfed since 78.)… I’ve been run over by people, Ive run over other people, bunny hopped people etc….bonked in the head, ducked under boards in the barrell ,,,,,Hit and stuffed to the the bottom…dragged to the freeway rocks pretty sure I was drowning, getting lost in the dark without board etc etc etc Standard stuff I guess.
….My bigger fear is just maybe what happened to this guy,,,just blowing the pump out. Im kinda ancient now……….for surfing. So I guess Im retired. Least till I get a heart check!! Never been to the doc…so, kinda dont want to know.
In this instance, Chas clearly states that it was the unknown paddler (Augie/Aggie) who received the cuts to head and nose from Gilhools’ (the rider) fin though…
Jacob wants “the other side of the story”, uh huh, sure.
“uh, yeah, I’m also recording this call. Also you’re on speaker but I don’t have a lawyer cop within 6 feet of me”
Surely the other side of the story would be…
“ya mate ran me over and sliced my head and nose, now ya telling me he died, so who do I send my medical bill to ?”…
Or am I reading Chas’ description of the incident incorrectly ? I don’t think so…
There isn’t a hard and fast rule that says the rider or the paddler is legally responsible for the others’ injuries. It’s just a general requirement that everyone act “reasonably”. If the paddler lost control of his board when another “reasonable person exercising due care” would have maintained control, the paddler could be held legally responsible for the rider’s injuries.
For everyone involved I really hope it doesn’t come to that. The legal system is a bigger shitshow than COVID era Rincon.
Chas clearly states that the paddler (Augie/Aggie) was the one who received the head and nose cuts from the riders (Gilhool) fin…
Yeah, and the other dude died. I’m not a doctor or nurse. I guess spontaneous cardiac arrest is possible but it sounds like there was some trauma.
edit: point being that if this whole incident spawns a lawsuit, which I really hope it doesn’t for everyone involved, we really can’t say who is going to be paying who. Could be all on the rider, could be all on the paddler, or it could be anywhere in between. We just don’t know based on how little info we have about the accident and how rarely lineup etiquette gets litigated in negligence cases.
just think of the videos that are going to be making the rounds. awful story. sad.
Maybe he had a heart attack while riding and froze up running that guy over? Hopefully that’s why they want the other side of the story.
Arrest anyone who attempts to roll under waves, even if they didn’t kill someone.
I don’t need facts, I’m gonna use this to advance my pet narrative.
But in all sincerity I have some mutual friends with this dude. Apparently he was a nice, kind, generous fellow with a 3 year old kid.
A friend of Gerry’s was posting pics of him surfing on the Surfer forum and it looks like he was a legit surfer who could ride. Sad situation.
Can’t Cali just fall into the ocean yet?
Been to Arizona lately? Can you imagine Yuma having waves? It would be apocalyptic.
Tradgedy of the commons