“OMG. Trigger warning first. Did not expect to open Instagram and see that.”

The big-wave world champ and four-time Jaws winner Billy Kemper, a man who famously who survived a near-fatal wipeout in Morocco in 2020, busted Kegel, burst lung, wrecked kneecap and ribs, an event that was made into a brilliant series by the great Erik Logan, has posted a gruesome vid of his leg after his latest surf crash, this time in Mexico.

“You gotta pay to play,” writes Billy Kemper. “On the last day of my trip I took a bad fall and the nose of my surf board stabbed me through my hamstring and hitting my femur so hard that my first thought was, I broke my leg! After taking 5 solid waves on my head I realized it wasn’t broken and that I had a massive hole in my leg. Rushed to the hospital in Mexico to get sewed up and then straight to LA to get a MRI for @doctor.masi to make sure there wasn’t anything still in there or any ligament / tendon damage. Honestly this was so close to being much worse and I am beyond grateful that I’m walking away from this one.”

 

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Pro surfers were quick to offer sympathy but also a little philosophy.

“The other side of fun!” writes Parker Coffin.

Others were made a little spewy by the videos graphic nature.

“OMG. Trigger warning first.”

“Did not expect to open instagram and see that.”

“Jesus Billy. No warning.”

I force myself to watch surgical videos, and I urge you too, so when the time comes and a pal is sitting there on the deck of a boat with his skull flap draping over his face and its either you stitch it up or he dies, you’re in there with needle, thread and a stoicism you wish you never had to employ.

“The problem with stupid people reaching an elite level that they often make the mistake of thinking they're an elite person in general.”

Over the past two days, a reddit thread discussing the medical bona fides of Kelly Slater has snowballed after a screenshot of a Slater missive during the 2020 pandemic was posted with the caption “Dr Slater back at it again.”

What follows is a long and, let’s be frank unfair and unnecessarily cruel, examination of Kelly Slater’s medical expertise.

It’s really important to remember that pro athletes are generally really fucking stupid

And that’s just normal professional athletes. It’s another level when you ride a board of any kind professionally.

Surfer lacking a college education thinks he’s smarter than doctors and specialists that spent most of their lives studying medicine and infectious diseases. Dunning-Kruger in full effect.
Shocker.

Perhaps he should stick to what he knows which is selling overpriced clothes and gear that I’ve never seen a veteran surfer wear.

Pro surfers with few exceptions are some of the dumbest motherfuckers you could ever encounter. Shut up Kelly. No one is listening.
‘
Someone should explain to him that viruses mutate. And that the larger pool of hosts a virus has the more scope it has to mutate… to mutate into variants that aren’t protected by existing vaccines. It is socially irresponsible to not get vaccinated, you risk not just your own health but the health of those you come into contact with.

No, it would be impossible to explain this concept in a simple enough way to someone as dense as Kelly Slater. Even if you stuck the landing he’d be like “sounds like some science BS… I’m just going to stick to drinking my Maca and call it good.” He is great at surfing though.

What a douchebag. You’d think the most legendary surfer of all time who is extremely wealthy would just wanna surf and enjoy the rest of his life being happy

Is this recent?? Did he wake up and realize no one gives a shit about him anymore so he is just bringing back the hits??
I think it is important to remember that surfing is not without its traumatic brain injuries – and a guy like Slater has taken a lot of hits to the head in his career. It probably looks like a pillowcase full of old cottage cheese up in there.

Slater is full on the male equivalent to that hippy tumeric smoothy Mom that started at “namaste”, got into Chem trails, then Q Annon, then anti vaxxing, and now somehow hates brown people.

Damnit, Kelly. Suffered too many hits to the head?

Why is it that the most notable surfers feel the most compelled to voice their dumbass opinions?

The problem with stupid people reaching an elite level in their field is that they often make the mistake of thinking they’re just an elite person in general.

Kelly Slater infuriates me. Back in like 2016/2017 he was calling for a bull shark cull in the Réunion islands after all of the attacks and said that their population was “too large” and they were outcompeting other species. Like ???? They’re supposed to be there?? Good to know, aside from being a conservationist, he’s also a public health professional now.

There’s a line in that momentum generation film where Kelly says, and I’m paraphrasing here as I don’t remember it exactly, something like ‘even though I’m in my 50s I still feel like I’m 18’. He said it like that was a good thing.

So many people in this realm are so stupid.  What would they say if a Dr. told them about surfing or board design.  General problem is today that anyone with money is showered with praise and thinks they know everything.  

Kelly is indisputably the greatest competitive surfer of all time, but he’s also a pseudo-intellectual jackass who seems to be convinced that he’s an unusually intelligent person.

Kelly’s medical opinions are worth about as much as my doctor’s surfing skills, and my doctor doesn’t surf.

It seems forever ago that Kelly Slater was celebrated for his “best and most savage online takedown” when he made fun of a gal who forgot to apply the handbrake in a Porsche, with predictable results. 

The two comments defending Kelly Slater were most ignored and subsequent responses were deleted by the moderator perhaps for containing obscenities.

In hindsight, he was right, and I and many other Australians who thought he was crazy were wrong.

And

I can’t believe the sentiment of this thread. I agree with Kelly and given the choice now I wouldn’t take the Covid shots back in 2020.

Which side of the coin  do you fall? Heads, he crazy, tails, well, that vaccine thing, in this case at least, was right.

I take the latter although, for perspective, I also believe the moon landing is real and that jihadists took down the towers. And, as a light contradiction, I also believe the Israeli’s knew the USS Liberty was the USS Liberty and that there’s a real creepy side to Barack Obama, whom I formerly adored.