“They ruled out heart attack, they ruled out stroke, there were no injuries..."
A mysterious tragedy struck San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, days ago. Longtime local, and father of two, Kirby Lee was in the lineup, enjoying an unseasonably calm day. Light winds, “tiny” waves according to another local. The meteorologist called it 3 – 5 foot. Next thing anyone knew, Lee was unconscious in the water. A fellow surfer paddled him to shore where CPR was administered until the firemen arrived.
Fire Department Capt. Justin Schorr said Lee was “pulseless and not breathing.” They rushed him to UCSF Medical Center, where he was put on life support. Yesterday, he was taken off.
Cause of death?
Lee’s sister told SF Gate, “They ruled out heart attack, they ruled out stroke, there were no injuries, nothing on the outside of this body that indicated he had been hit by his board and knocked unconscious, nothing. We asked the doctors so many times. It sounded like they were very thorough. It’s a mystery.”
Lee grew up in San Bernardino, teaching himself to surf in Orange County as a teenager. He did his undergraduate studies at San Diego State and UC Santa Barbara and got a degree in biopsychology. Next came a master’s in pharmacology at Boston University before a received a doctor of pharmacology at UCSF where he remained an associate professor.
He lived at Ocean Beach, with his family, and loved when it got big. Friend and fellow surfer Sam Awad said, “I would sit with him and many times I would go inside to get more of the smaller waves. He had great patience and would always wait for the larger sets to come through and pick off some of the biggest, longest and best-shaped waves. Kirby had no fear and seemed always calm in heavy surf.”
Lee surfed all around the world but was very much a part of the tight knit OB community.
The mystery of his death, no visible trauma, no understandable cause, a baffling puzzle.
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VAX
Pharma professor mysteriously passes in the surf? I’d bet My left leg he had a few rounds of those lovely shots and that did him in. Oh, & I’m a big fan of my left leg.
What a tragedy.
#diedsuddenly
Cant wait to see what the ‘ghouls’ try and point to.
RIP
see above
Agree Hippy. Shit thing to bring up.
Sounds like exactly what did it… ghoul: “an evil spirit, an angry ghost, or an unseen force”, the complex makes all kinds of unseen forces these days, pretty easy to eject some one from their body these days, just need a primer disguised with in something like an unstudied vaccine.
Poor lad.
Surely its the windymills.
Were you friends, C4?
No don’t know him
the HAARP machine conspiracy theory is as old and busted as chemtrails. Homeless aresol = new hotness
Bummer, sounds like a really good guy. I hope his family can find peace.
Now is not the time to politiize a death. We must send our Thoughts and Prayers.
Must have been afflicted by whatever Newsom used to temporarily clear out all the homeless. Funny how it’s not a humanitarian crisis when it’s politically expedient for him, and he has no problem resorting to the more draconian methods advocated by the American political right to address the problem (i.e., bus them to somewhere else and make them someone else’s problem) that he criticizes Red States over.
And yeah, we’ve made an untimely death story about politics, but this guy looks like he had a competent backside bottom turn, so I’m sure he’d be cool with it.
The linked SF story has another nice pic of him coming off the top at some tropical location. Very sad, but at least he was in the water. RIP.
Someone should Pat Batemans freezer for body parts