Miracle workers.
Surfers, around the globe, had a terrible scare this week as World Surf League CEO Erik Logan suffered a life-threatening reef injury in Tahiti, underwent an emergency stabilizing procedure at the hands of deputy commissioner Renato Hickel and head judge Pritamo Ahrendt then disappeared.
In a moment of weakness, I lightly questioned whether Hickel was qualified to rub lemon or lime into Logan’s wounds and whether Ahrendt was certified to provide commentary and now deep shame rests upon my bowed head as Logan resurfaced with a bandaged foot and, though it appeared as if he had been crying, had a smile on his face.
But of course he was alive and well-ish because of course Hickel and Ahrendt knew what they were doing because of course they are surfers.
The best.
And as if to punctuate surfer heroism and my own shame, two brave San Francisco surfers just yesterday pulled a dead man from Ocean Beach’s frigid waters and brought him back to life on the sand.
Whoa.
The scene unfolded at 9:30 in the morning when the two aforementioned surfers saw an elderly man floating face down in the surf. They paddled him in while bystanders on shore called 911. When medics arrived, they discovered he had no pulse but they bashed on his chest, or whatever is recommended these days, enough to snap a light heartbeat.
He was loaded into the ambulance in critical condition, unloaded at the hospital in serious condition.
A proper improvement.
Surfers.
Sometimes angry enough to drown a fellow man. Sometimes beneficent enough to bring one back from the dead.