“Acute Fear of Surfing” Man sues resort for 650k after wave pool collision

The resort said it had "no direct knowledge of how the accident occurred as none of its employees saw it occur."

A collision on one of Lochtefeld’s epic FlowRiders at a Cornwall resort has left an experienced surfer with a rare nerve condition and, he says, a lingering fear of the sport he once loved to hell.

And, so, he is suing the resort for half-a-mill pounds or 650k in Americano dollars.

The surfer was using the FlowRider at the Retallack Resort and Spa near St. Columb Major in July 2022 when he collided with another rider.

His face and skull struck the floor of the pool.

The surfer said the impact caused a severe hyperextension injury to his neck, stretching key nerves in what is known as a “stinger”. He immediately saw a vivid white flash, felt pain down his right side and lost feeling in his right arm for about 40 minutes.

The injury later developed into what his lawyers describe as chronic burner syndrome, a condition marked by burning pain, numbness and tingling radiating from the neck. He says the condition has left him with numb fingertips in both hands, compromising his manual dexterity and causing him to regularly drop objects.

Like, yike!

“He finds that working for long periods of time at the computer increases his symptoms of neck and right trapezius pain,” his barrister told the court. “This limits his productivity and ability to maintain focus at work.”

The surfer says he struggles to drive, developing arm pain after about 30 minutes behind the wheel, and suffers disturbed sleep every night. Turning his neck to the right brings on shooting nerve pain that can last for days, his lawyers said.

The accident, and this is the big one, I think, and worth the cash, left him with an “acute fear of surfing.”

He is suing Away Resorts Ltd., which owns the property, alleging the company was negligent in failing to control how many people were using the wave machine at once.

Away Resorts has admitted breach of duty over the accident but disputes both the severity of the injuries the surfer describes and the size of the payout he is seeking.

In its written defense, the resort said it had “no direct knowledge of how the accident occurred as none of its employees saw it occur.”

A little background on the FlowRider.

In 1987, Tommy Lochtefeld, whom we all know and love from these pages, sold his share in a bunch of theme parks for two million dollars and used that cash, as well the sale of his beachfront joint at La Jolla for 950k to create a standing wave, called Flowrider, that ended up being installed in over 200 joints in thirty-five countries.

Tommy sold the tech in 2014 and henceforth shifted his focus onto his Surf Loch pools.