Graphic: Legrope debate explodes after man almost dies at Californian big-wave hotspot The Wedge! “This surfer is lucky to be alive!”

Feel the chilly breath of the engine of slaughter upon your neck!

The ol’ leash-or-no-leash debate has exploded following the near-scalping of a bodyboarder at The Wedge, Newport Beach’s mutant cross-wave that takes a south swell hitting the rock wall and creates “a titanic slingshot that breaks with enough pounds per square inch to send Stone Cold Steve Austin to the mat.”

In a clip posted on YouTube shorts by the world’s most famous redhead Jamie O’Brien, an almost-forty-year-old vlogger from Pipeline Beach on Oahu, we see the bodyboarder going right against the prevailing traffic, before the axe of the dreaded engine of slaughter almost lands upon his neck; enough to feel its chilling breath.

Of course, the man being a bodyboarder fed into a long-held prejudice about riders of the little foam crafts.

“That’s not a surfer. Thats a boog.”

“Sponger. Not surfer. There’s a difference.”

“Less body boarders the better lol.”

“That’s not a surfer. He’s a bellyboarder.”

“That’s not a surfer, that’s a boogie boarder!”

Etc.

Which begs the question, are bodyboarders people too and are therefore endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness?

Or no?

I think yes! Some of my best friends etc.