Not for the squeamish.
Nathan Florence’s stratospheric rise seems to happening at the same exact rate, and at the exact inverse angle, as the World Surf League’s precipitous fall. Once an overlooked Jan Brady-esque figure, the middle boy has carved out a growing niche as slab hunter, comic, surf adventurer par excellence.
Wonderful to observe.
Though, the adage “to whom much is given, much is required,” came home to roost for the almost handsome 29-year-old as he suffered a gruesome, horror film-esque injury that left blood squirting from his elbow like a victim of Patrick Bateman himself.
Kaiborg’s son-in-law shared the moment with his nearly half million Instagram followers, writing:
So got a bit wounded! Board speared my elbow doing a turn, lol imagine that turns more dangerous then slab tour (smiley face emoji) trip was just getting started at @secretsumatra unfortunately had to end early as infection set in and cut had had some fiberglass in it, flew home to find out board had speared into bone fracturing it, they removed a little chip and did some cleaning, got a few weeks of recovery ahead nothing to wild, thanks @deanfergus for all the help and for having us at @secretsumatra we cant wait to come back and surf it on the pump the set up was awesome! Time to take advantage of some rest hawaii to africa to indo and back around the world in 3 weeks was wild haha and just one of this years adventures with more to come! Thanks my ortho/ER friends at Kaiser for the clean up!
Yikes.
But would you like to share your goriest surf injury? Mine was probably just a boring dislocated shoulder.
Snooze.
This story about blood squirting from Nathan Florence’s elbow is my 4975th here on BeachGrit.
I hope you enjoyed reading it as much I did writing it.