"It is a sad day for the world when it takes the life of an absolute legend!"
It was, in some ways, a freak accident but it still didn’t come as a hell of a surprise when news broke that a recreational surfer had busted his neck and died at Teahupoo on Thursday.
As reported yesterday, French Polynesian news outlets said the man, identified as daddy of two Patrick Phillips, fifty six and from La Jolla, California, hit the reef and busted two vertebrae in his neck in a wipeout.
Another surfer resuscitated Phillips on site before he was taken to the nearby Taravao Hozzy and, later, to the more sophisticated CHPF (Centre Hospitalier de la Polynésie Française) as he hovered ‘tween life and death.
The rescue was made “more complex by the language barrier,” according to Taiarapu-Ouest fire chief Haamoe Hoata, noting that the victim and some of his relatives did not speak any French.
Phillips sure had some friends, with a paddle out at La Jolla yesterday well attended.
Chris Cote, whom you know well, described Phillips as a “gem of a man.”
On Facebook his pal Greg Sinclair wrote:
Patrick Phillips, a longtime friend from San Diego passed away earlier this week while surfing in Tahiti. At the current time I have no information about what happened. My heart goes out to his wife and two sons, his family and to his friends who are now sharing their love. Patrick and I lived under the same roof for almost a year with his older brother Pepper and mother. I’ll always remember him as a good natured kid approaching grommethood. It was never hard to get a smile from Patrick. Rest in peace my good man!
For the below the line dweller, how often do you reflect on your own mortality?
Do you live each day as if it’s your last, inhaling the sweet morning air when you wake up, saying hello to your friends the birds and the trees, or do you find existence an excruciating bore and can’t wait to visit the next world?