"It pushed me into a big dark cement room that fills up with water to push the next wave for the wave pool. It felt like I was in the movie SAW or Final destination."
The Hawaiian-born UFC superstar BJ Penn has revealed he was almost killed at a wavepool after being sucked outta the tank and into the engine room.
BJ, who is forty-two and a long-time UFC drawcard, only the second cat to win in two diff weight divs, says he was sitting next to the owner of the pool, neither named, got a little close to the wall and, next thing, he’s fighting for his life.
BJ writes,
Last year when I got sucked into a wave pool engine room and thought I was going to die… I kept thinking “don’t die for your kids” I was surfing for a about an hour and the line started getting longer to catch the wave. I was sitting next to the owner of the wave pool by the “wall” where the waves come from. The first wave it shoots out is a dud to get everyone ready for the next wave. The dud wave came back and because I was so close to the wall the wave swallowed me and pushed me and my surfboard underneath a huge cement wall. I remember feeling like I was getting sucked in a pipe and at that moment I got scared. It ended up pushing me into a big dark cement room that fills up with water to push the next wave for the wave pool. It felt like I was in the movie SAW or Final destination. The room would fill up with water to the top and I would hold my breath and then it would push the water out to make the wave and it was really rough inside there. Everything I bumped up against in the room that hurt me got infected. I got a bad sinus infection and a couple facial fractures from getting knocked around the cement walls and from the fractures the dirty water got in my face and infected my whole sinus. I was on antibiotics for three weeks for my face. While I was in the wave pool engine room I knew that one of my friends outside from big island is a legendary surfer and I knew he would come in there to rescue me so I stayed calm. A lot of other people might have panicked and maybe gave up but I just stayed strong for my kids. Anyway to make a long story short I survived that mother fucker 😛😛😛 !! The name of the people and water park have been left out. I not the kine guy shows up to your house to play and gets hurt and tries to sue you so all love ❤️ to everyone who helped me get there and helped me survive 🤙 Maybe I was the first guy in history to get sucked into a wave pool engine room while it is in operation but no matter what happens in life and no matter how scary it is if I can offer you any advice I would just say to “stay calm”. If I didn’t fight tough cunts my whole life I might have panicked, but it was just another day in the office
Shane Dorian, who was the legendary Big Island surfer who saved BJ, replied,
“Happy you kept it together down there. That was really terrifying. Live to shred another day!”
Commented on Disqus? Log out, tap the Disqus button, and your old name and comments come back. The box is ours.
Your comments are still here. Every one of them.
Twelve years of BeachGrit comments came across from Disqus. Connect and we will show you how many are yours. We get your username, nothing else.
Connect Disqus to reveal.
First wave pool fatality? I know these are a different kind but someone tell the writer about action park. They called it the grave pool. “Wave pools” as a whole are fuckin deathtraps
A lie. Not even a baby can fit through those bars to get into the pump room.
Ummm, Waco killed that poor guy from New Jersey.
…and BJ almost drown in the concrete Penn.
Now we know how the wave pool in Texas works thanks to BJ’s horror movie experience. Hope they don’t sue him for disclosing the secret tech!
-Pump water into concrete holding tank
-pressurize with compressed air
-open gate to release the mix over contoured pool floor
Kinda like a giant water rocket or super soaker. Seems like it would use less energy than the Slater machine.
Don’t think was Waco.
Fuckin had to be! …Bitchy. Do your journo research please.
Unless some new Palm Springs pool maybe…
I figured out which one it is but have friends involved in it. Also makes sense why he never told anybody where it happened.
In a strange twist of events here I am kind of stoked on this dude for not outing the company. Lot of softer cunts would’ve been looking for a paycheck and a public crucifixion.
“Always pulling bodies outta the caves.” -Turtle
The real fatality of a wave pool is ‘soul’
Attn: Chazz Michael Michaels
Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
FUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKK
Off.
Don’t think it’s the KS tank.
yeah there you’d get sucked into a chain-linked fishing net of sorts and ran over by a fuckin big blue trowel never to be seen again. Just a red bloody left in reverse (4 minutes later). RIP
The first wave pool fatality will be from a shark attack, mark my words
And when it happens there will be no less than 10 Beach Grit articles about it.
Just think if it happened to Jonah hill, the trifecta.
Or better yet E lo
No more BODY LOVE…..
Worst thing I’ve ever seen.
Pool sharks.
Magical is manhandling slaters boards at the ranch and dropping one while staring at the security camera
Dying only hurts for milliseconds. Ive rolled them over to look into their eyes.
i guess when you shoot em in the back you have to roll em over, huh?
A coward dies a thousand deaths
I’m good for whatever.
How much fucking appropriation, cultural or otherwise is going on here? A Hawaiian who does some kind of wrestling; surfing in an urban swimming pool probs designed by some university educated engineer from a cunt of a country that no doubt stole land from indigenous someones; saved by a white dude from Hawaii who makes a living from surfing; using a Jewish-American owned social media platform to repeat the message of Buddha, I think – “stay calm.”
Fuck me the cancel torpedoes are gonna rain down on this cunt worse than any engine room or 3/4 naked fist fighter gonna do!
Makes your head spin
Which are the non cunt countries?
The ones who used to eat each other?
Tell it like it is!
I’d say right now the UK is the most non cuntiest country
they should be held a cannibal!
Shtick man
The ones that can’t afford to offer its citizenry courses on woke
Ur brain prob looks like swiss cheese at this point. Put down the keyboard and turn off the TV.
Thank you. My outrage induced apoplectic fit prevented me from responding myself
I have a pretty good story about a guy wanting to take me to the “beach” for a fight at the Melbourne wave pool, but for now, here’s this.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Fuk
Was that you?
Did you try and fight someone there? It wasn’t you Bex.
Just jokin
We woulda been mates.
A lot of my mates are total fuckheads, so you might be right.
I’ve been told I’m very sweet and charming.
Do tell
It’s actually a pretty long story, and has follow up chapters. Was thinking of writing a piece and submitting it. I’ll probs get blacklisted from the pool if it’s published though. I will say that it was with the ULTIMATE VAL.
We’ll make time for it!
You havvvve to!!!
Goddamn it, Pauly, write the damn thing, You know the email.
Some Italian actually snaked me. I was too dumbfounded to suggest a duel.
Oh shit. Did he have long blonde hair?
Well he probably does by now, you know…..probably got the extensions they are no doubt offering in the cafe area.
Same thing happened to me by an Italian by the way of Qld fella with the aforementioned hair. I gave him a quick “Oi”, and he blew up. This other cunt was heaps worse though.
Hahaha, I’m very glad that the pool has spawned the aggressiveness that it was supposed to quell.
Italians, Brazzos, Israelis and Gold Coasters all on the same level of “cunt in the surf”
I’m flattered you went to all this trouble!
I just got photoshop on Saturday and have been trying to work it out. I was gonna do it with Derek Hynd actually, but I think you probably suit it better.
Dereka
shit
I got sucked off in the carpark afterwards. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Really? Because judging by your pic you don’t look nearly flexible enough to suck your own dick let alone tie your own shoelaces
Bit harsh
I’m no spring chicken my very good friend.
Ah a few drinks just talking shit
That’s what we here for!
Was that beast mode or Waikiki mode?
Inter
Is beast mode only for private groups? that quick barrel section looks pretty fun.
Beast was later that evening and I had been told by the government to leave the state as I was a biohazard. Not joking.
Should have just told them you washed all the covid off you into the water.
Getting sucked in is not as much fun as getting sucked off
Underground Fellatio Cave champ.
Blotto in da grotto.
Thoughts and prayers 🙏
What a fuckin’ dickhead
…”don’t die for your kids”…
Hey I realise he’s not exactly a Brain Sturgeon and/or a Professor of Rocket Appliances, but come on..
Surely he would’ve read it back to himself even if he is just an idiot who’s fought “tough cunts my whole life” etc.
He must really carve the waves up though, especially if he’d been “surfing for about an hour” at the place.
Yeah good one.
Basically, who gives a fuck, the guy sounds, and looks, like a typical halfwit thug.
‘Ali’ he obviously ain’t….
Aaaanyway
It sounds like it was at Waco if Dorian was there, no doubt with his own kids again (that he surely would die for).
And the mystery ‘concrete wall’ seems a bit of a giveaway…
P.S.
Dunno if they have a Wave Garden pool in the good old Ooh Ess Ayy.)
Sounds pretty accurate. As for the Wave Gardens… I believe there’s a few in their early developmental stages around the East coast but none up and running yet.
Sounds like wave garden tech maybe?
I’ve definitely had a few run ins with that mesh fencing but I dunno how you’d manage to get sucked under it…
Better close all the wave pools, just to be sure.
Or perhaps he was stuck in Yeppoon
No! Then they come to the ocean that was supposed to have already flooded the world.
The sea only rises in certain countries.
It’s incredible!!!
Think: have you ever seen Doz at a Wavegarden?
I can’t recall seeing him at any wave pool. Though I’m sure KS would be the natural fit. So long as Lemoore has a population of free range wild boars that is ethically sustainable to bow hunt during the gazetted game windows.
Fuck That!