Big-wave surfer Nathan Bartlett, Who Survived a Near-Fatal Wipeout in Indonesia, Dies at 43

"He was a free surfer and one of the best with the big waves. One of the best surfers to grace the wave."

Nathan Bartlett was, by the accounts of those who watched him surf for more than three decades, one of the best the NSW South Coast had ever produced.

On Wednesday afternoon, he died doin’ what he loved.

Nathan Bartlett, 43, and little bro Byron, 38, were riding waves off Cape St. George Lighthouse, a remote stretch of coastline 125 miles south of the Australian capital, Canberra, when emergency services received reports of two surfers in distress at around two pm.

Officers from the South Coast Police District and Marine Area Command pulled Nathan and Byron from the water.

Nathan was unresponsive. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Byron was assessed by paramedics at the Murrays Beach Boat Ramp and released.

Nathan grew up in Manyana, an achingly pretty coastal village just south of Jervis Bay, in a family for whom surfing pretty much everything. All three Bartlett brothers became shredders and Nathan was considered the best of them and, in the estimation of many, the finest of his generation in the region.

Tim Bonython, whom you know as the filmmaker who never misses a swell from Shipsterns to The Right to Teahupoo, had filmed Nathan for 15 years.

“He was a free surfer and one of the best with the big waves,” Tim told The Canberra Times, “one of the best surfers to grace the wave.”

He Had Already Cheated Death Once

Nine years earlier, Nathan Bartlett nearly drowned at Indonesia’s Desert Point, which breaks, if you’ve ever ridden the joint, over a wildly shallow live coral reef. He had been among the standout performers of that June swell in 2017 — racking up tubes the day before, and doing the same again on June 16 when the accident happened.

Two in the arvo. Blew a late takeoff.

It was only after two more waves rolled through that a witness noticed his board floating alone. Nathan was already far away, face down in the water.

Bodyboarder Renan Farias reached him first, paddling hard. Two others followed. What they found was grim: Bartlett’s face was disfigured, he had no pulse, his skin was turning purple, his lungs full of water.

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One of the rescuers began cardiac massage in the open ocean, paddling with one hand and compressing with the other.

Water poured from Bartlett’s mouth.

A fishing boat appeared. Getting Bartlett aboard took several men and several minutes. The massage never stopped. Then, on the boat, he took his first breath. The rescuer turned him onto his right side and began to pray.

They took him to a nearby bay, carried him into a warung and there, Nathan Bartlett woke up. He recognised the man who had saved him, gripped his hand, and asked him not to leave.

His brother arrived. Friends arrived. They drove him to Mataram, the nearest town. He was cleaned and stitched. Two days later he was transferred to Bali. He had broken his nose. The cuts on his face were deep, dangerously close to his eye. No brain damage. His lungs recovered gradually. Surgeons in Australia repaired his nose.

He went home to his wife and two lil kids, one two months old, the other two years old.

He returned to surfing.

Away from the water, Mr. Bartlett worked as a professional carpenter, a life organised, one friend said, around a simple set of priorities.

“He was a lovely, confident guy who was all about his family,” the friend told The Canberra Times. “It was work, family, and surfing for him.”