"When the big-wave star was pulled from the water, he had no pulse. It took more than a minute for medical personnel to revive him."
On February 9, 2022, the noted Portuguese big wave surfer and 2019 Big Wave Tour top-six finisher, Alexandre Antonio Keja Botelho sued the World Surf League in California state court.
Bill Sharp, the General Manager of the Big Wave World Tour, and Scott Eggers, the Safety Director of the Big Wave World Tour, were also named as defendants.
The suit stems from the 2020 Nazaré Tow Surfing Challenge, held on February 11, 2020. During the event, Botelho was involved in a jet ski crash that made international headlines, where he and his partner, Hugo Vau, were thrown more than 20 feet in the air. The chaos of the accident led Albee Layer to state, “Our lives are clickbait.”
During the event, Botelho and Vau were launched into the air after trying to drive out of the impact zone following one of Botelho’s rides.
Botelho landed on the ski, striking both his head and chest, rendering him unconscious.
According to Botelho, he was unconscious in the water for up to six minutes before he was pulled from the sea not breathing. Earlier rescue attempts were made by his tow partner Alemao Edilson Luis da Assuncio, but Botelho was not saved until he drifted close enough to the shore to be reached by rescue personnel.
When Botelho was pulled from the water, he had no pulse. It took more than a minute for medical personnel to revive him. He also suffered a perforated lung and was rushed to the hospital in critical condition after vomiting water on the beach.
After arriving at the hospital, Botelho had to be intubated (a medical procedure where a tube is inserted into the trachea) for “machine-assisted breathing.” According to the complaint, Botelho “required his lungs to be drained and further suffered a bacterial infection in his lungs from the sea water.” He remained in intensive care for a week and had to be hospitalized for fifteen days.
Further, Botelho alleged psychological injuries from the accident, including “nightmares of the drowning, sleep and mood disturbance, and a gradually dissipating fear of entering ocean water again.”
He also lost various sponsorships and income as a result of his inability to compete.
Botelho alleged claims of: (1) negligence/gross negligence; (2) fraudulent concealment; (3) intentional misrepresentation; and (4) negligent misrepresentation. He seeks damages for past and future expenses and loss of revenue, as well as punitive damages and attorney’s fees.
According to Botelho, the WSL greatly exaggerated the event’s safety measures and then coerced competitors into signing waivers of liability after competitors realized the promised safety measures were not present.
In the months before the event, Botelho and other surfers became concerned about the adequacy of the safety measures proposed by the WSL, prompting the surfers to propose “that each team be provided with a budget to assemble their own, hand-picked safety team.”
According to the complaint, the WSL agreed to the proposal that “each team [would] have a dedicated water safety jet ski and driver shadowing them while in the water and three radios and a dedicated channel per team for communication.”
The WSL, through Bill Sharp, also communicated a three-layer safety plan: the first being the team member on the ski to make pickups; the second a “dedicated Safety Support pilot and jet ski to pick up a surfer in the event the team member is unable to do so;” and the third being medical personnel position on the shore.
According to the complaint, this plan “was deemed by virtually every surfer invited to participate in the Nazaré event as unsatisfactory” and the WSL was allegedly made aware of the discontent via a group email.
The surfers, including Botelho, were concerned about the lack of an additional safety layer. They insisted on the presence of an additional jet ski carrying a rescue swimmer “dedicated to the rescue and pickup of any hurt, unconscious, or in distress surfer.”
To comply, the WSL allegedly agreed to hire Kalani Lattanzi to be the rescue swimmer; according to the complaint he was listed in this role in the WSL Information Kit provided to the competitors.
The complaint alleges that the WSL failed to take any steps to implement the safety measures promised to the surfers. Further, it alleges the WSL “willfully and fraudulently” concealed this failure.
The WSL also allegedly never contacted Lattanzi, the agreed upon rescue swimmer.
The complaint alleges further failures on behalf of the WSL: (1) failure to provide a dedicated Safety Support jet ski driver to shadow each team; (2) failure to provide working radios to each team’s spotter; (3) failure to provide three promised radios to each team, resulting in Botelho’s spotter’s inability to communicate with safety personnel; (4) failure to provide any rescue swimmer; (5) failure to provide “the minimum number of experienced water safety individuals anticipated by the competitors;” (6) failure to implement “a clear structure” and to assign responsibilities to water safety personnel; (7) failure to place a strategy to address emergencies; and (8) failure to train and equip lifeguards on the beach with the necessary lifesaving equipment.
The competitors did not become aware of the WSL’s alleged misrepresentations until the eve of the event. When competitors did become aware of the inadequate safety measures, some refused to sign the required agreement between the individual and WSL. The agreement included a waiver of liability.
In response, the WSL allegedly told surfers they would not be permitted to compete if they did not sign the agreement. According to the complaint, many competitors felt pressured to sign the agreement due in part to costs associated with traveling and training for Nazaré and perceived obligations to sponsors.
When Botelho signed the agreement, he was still not fully aware of the extent of the WSL’s alleged misrepresentations.
According to the complaint, after signing, he still was under the impression that Lattanzi would be acting as a rescue swimmer.
The complaint alleges that the confluence of these factors, notably the lack of an independent rescue swimmer, resulted in Botelho’s injuries.
Last year, HBO unveiled “100 Foot Wave,” a docuseries profiling the big wave community at Nazaré. Episode five of the docuseries detailed the 2020 tow event.
The series has been widely advertised by the WSL.
In August of 2021, HBO announced the series had been renewed for a second season.
The 2022 Nazaré Tow Surfing Challenge took place on February 10, a day after Botelho’s suit was filed.
Who would be able to swim in that anyways. A rescue swimmer with a death wish? If a jetski is unable to make it through a special rescue swimmer is just going to be another person who needs rescued.
Dirk, close it down!
Fuck the safety swimmer. The wsl provided a team of scout snipers along the cliffs edge to take out any tosser who didn’t slide down the slop burger bombs. Forcing them to compete at gunpoint was all the safety measures the wsl needed to take.
I thought only Americans sued – @seaofseven
Maybe Botelho and Elo can fight it out on “Judge Judy”..
I am completely shocked the WSL would cut corners.
Comment of the week!
This will almost certainly end up in arbitration, but you have to wonder who might be the plaintiff’s big wave tow in safety standard of care expert witness if this doesn’t settle or get dismissed on summary judgment. Laird?
No kidding..
Tough stuff.
Negligence law in “extreme sports” was written by/for ski resorts. These cases are really tough for plaintiffs. I haven’t read the complaint but this thing will live or die on the gross negligence allegations. If those are not good enough or do not pan out, the wsl wins before trial.
What a load of nonsense. They knew what the score was when signed up to go out and take on the madhouse cauldron that Nazare was and is. No case to answer. Dismissed. Anymore gold diggers in the court today. No well Im sure there will be on a future date as this already controversial season goes along its merry way. Nothing more certain.
He didn’t have to go out in the first place. He signed the waiver. And the injury was due to his mate fucking up.
Yeah you’ve got balls to go out in huge surf but you really need to HTFU mate.
I’m surprised by the amount of people taking wsl side here.
I thought the point of the bwt was the ‘crash reels’. That’s the bit that often makes it out into the mainstream media – the wsl always wants that kind of exposure.
The competitors need to form some kind of association like the F1 drivers have so they have some represention and clout within the sport and not let the wsl dictate everything.
This would be good for the regular tour too, maybe we wouldn’t have had to suffer the wave pool events for so long if the surfer told them to piss off and take it back to the ocean.
I love the word “confluence”.
Love it when Cedar writes about my line of work.
WSL will argue volenti non fit injuria. Plus he’s a professional sportsman who signed a waiver. He’s got to prove fraud to get around that which he won’t do and as a result it’s likely he’ll get hammered on legal costs by the judge.
Damages if any are not the fact of crashing the ski but how much worse his injuries were made by their subsequent failure to pick him up quickly, i.e. could he have had a reduced injury with the safety in place. A hard case to prove and not worth that much.
Also a pretty fucked up thing for the ski driver if he’s got to give evidence he’ll have to have to choose between his career by backing WSL or his mate he nearly killed.
He’s looking to settle, won’t go near a court room with a dumb case like this. Probably WSL insurers playing hard to get, they’ll cough up some cash and he’ll go away.
You hiring?
I don’t do personal injury, rather chase hedge funds than ambulances but I do need my shoes shining…
Even better!
Bet you a sipping tequila and a beer chaser the insurance company settles…you know cost of defense is a great deterent to going to court.
At least it happened in Europe where all the direct treatment of his injuries is covered by universal (well, Portugese) health care. I’d imagine that same scenario would’ve been a clusterfuck for him in the USA.
You kook out driving the ski and hurt yourself and your “partner” ?
Now who do you sue? Eurotrash bigwave scene just gets worse.
Cedar Hobbs sues BG and principal DR for only publishing Hobbs’ writing on surf lawsuits and the Great Lakes. BG writers sue Hobbs for scribing a piece that took 2 minutes to scroll past.
12 ft 17 seconds, WNW
Station 51001 (LLNR 28006) – NORTHWESTERN HAWAII ONE – 188 NM NW of Kauai Island.
12:17 am 2/15/22
Sunset madness coming up!
Will it run today?
Too big. Well for some. Been prevaricating since Friday and there should have been surf action before now. The judges will come under close scrutiny when they finally get to work. Sitting around all day busy doing nothing is not conducive to straight thinking and thus marking.
45 min
Better happen! Been pregaming since 11am EST.
To make a ruling the judge is going to have to make a determination if the safety measures were adequate or not and obviously a judge wont know that so they will need expert testimony. Do experts in big wave surfing exist? A few might qualify but noone will say anything bad against the wsl as that will be the end of their career so likely the case is dismissed quickly due to lack of evidence. Good article will be interesting to see what happens
I wonder what bothelo and the surfers would have/said done if the wsl cancelled the event on the day due to unsafe conditions?
Splish splash I was taking a bath
How was I to know there was a party goin’ on…
Well ya bloody know there’s a real serious fuckin’ heavy party goin’ on bigtime whenever ya go out in those dangerous conditions, ya bullfighting drongo.
Or did ya want ya mummy to hold ya bloody hand.
Big waves and machines driven by maniacs with more machismo than sense and driving skill (as is shown in the full length video he chose the worst line possible which put them in that position) obviously don’t mix.
Sue ya mate for being a dick if anything, but no doubt you were screaming at him to take that line.
And a fat lot of good a “rescue swimmer” would’ve been out there.
I sure hope you’ve retired from this self-indulgent hobby that ya were trying to make cash off.
P.S.
Fuck the fuck off…