Big-wave hall of famer stabilised by paramedics, rushed to hospital after surfing accident

The continuing adventures of ol Slick Willie!

The big-wave superstar Ross Clarke-Jones, Slick Willie to his pals, and whose witch-like long-haired appearance reflects a part of his Dayak DNA, has been rushed to hozzy after an accident while surfing down in Port Campbell, Victoria, a couple hundred clicks south-west of Melbourne.

Ambulance Victoria confirmed its paramedics responded to an incident at Port Campbell shortly before 9 a.m. on Monday, June 8.

Advanced Life Support crews assessed and treated a patient at the scene, a spokesperson said, before transporting what they described as a man in his 60s although Ross only…just…hit sixty two days before the accident, with an upper body injury by road to Warrnambool Base Hospital, where he arrived in stable condition.

Slick Willie discharged himself Tuesday morning, canceling a scheduled MRI scan. His wife collected him from the hospital. He sustained facial injuries including a broken nose.

“He’s pretty banged up,” one source told The Standard, “but it’s not the first time. He does this for a living.”

Last year I interviewed Ross for the Surfers Journal, ol WIllie not disappointing.

He talked about appearing in a reality television series called Survivor where a group of celebs are dumped on an island and compete in various elimination challenges. In one, he was on a rope swing that broke, sending him crashing into a wooden deck and snapping his ankle. 

He subsequently sued hell out of the producers, taking his case to Australia’s Supreme Court. He claimed he was “totally incapacitated, depressed, broke and anxious” and sought damages for past and future lost earnings.  

For two years, our man couldn’t step on a surfboard, was riven by a horrible, hot pain and a feeling that he was carting around a prosthetic ankle at the end of leg. His mental battery was so agitated he was scared of even entering the water lest he fall and do more damage. 

“If I’d had a gun I would’ve shot myself,” he said.

I asked, how about now, are you satisfied?

Never! Never satisfied!  I want to win another Eddie! I want to be a part of another one! I want go back to Nazaré. I don’t care about the biggest wave in the world, but if I get on it that would be cool! Yeah!  ‘Seventy-year-old rides a two thousand foot wave!’ I’m not done yet. I’m not complacent but I’m not crying like I used to when I was never satisfied, when I was insatiable, thinking I was never in the right place. I wanted to be everywhere at once. I’m satisfied and grateful to be where I am. Fuck it, I’m not going anywhere.