"The music is loud and nobody is paying attention so I swim down and grab him and get his head above water."
Real sad news out of Honolulu yesterday, and reported here this morn, Brian “Hank” Stephens, dead of cancer at the relatively not-old age of sixty-two.
His peer Brian Bielmann summed up Hank’s life real well, “You were an asshole but you were our asshole.”
Now, Kelly Slater, fresh from another hall-of-fame performance at Teahupoo, has trumped every story told about Hank.
In a long piece posted to his Instagram page, Slater reveals if it wasn’t for him ol Hank wouldn’t have made it to twenty five after a mid-air collision sent Hank unconscious to the bottom of a Californian swimming pool.
We lost a good one in @hankfoto808 yesterday after a battle with cancer. I met Hank with @patchy_o and the crew at Salt Creek when I was a little kid. He was a kneeboarder then and he worked at the snack bar at the beach so we all called him ‘Snack-bar Hank’. The guys at Creek had a club called SCC (Salt Creek Core) and he was an ever-present figure in the group. I had just turned pro but hadn’t yet signed a contract yet and I had no logos so I only repped SCC stickers for a couple of weeks.
One night they threw an SCC house party. Everyone was drinking and partying along and then everyone started diving in the pool from the deep end one after another for about 15-20 mins. Then Hank decides to jump in from the side 90 degrees to everyone else right as I ran and dove headfirst. We connect mid air with my forehead on his temple. I was kinda ko’d for a second and thought I hurt my neck pretty badly underwater so I come up waving for help. I check on whoever it was I hit and it’s Hank blowing bubbles unconscious at the bottom of the pool. The music is loud and nobody is paying attention so I swim down and grab him and get his head above water when everyone starts helping. He’s coughing up water and super concussed but he’s alive. We call the ambulance and by the time they get there Hank is drinking beers again and refuses help before walking face first into a sliding glass door. So we tried again and again to get him to go get checked out but he flat out refuses and continues on with the night. Hank and I laughed about that one so many times over the years.
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Kelly met Hank when he was a little kid…didn’t that make Hank a little kid too since they about the same age🤪
Wait, he almost kills him and that becomes he saved his life? Hero
Good god the man is really incapable of telling a story that is not about himself.
Autism.
Some have suggested that Kelly is famous for the line “enough about me, how do you like my shirt.”
…you nailed it
Such as lovely story from Kelly “cunty” Slater admiring his own great humility.
Fuck me. Wins our hearts at Chopes but always has to go full tard….
Can a lesbian please puch him in the face….
Yeah
What’s the go boys are they running tomorrow? Starts at 3am with us down here and I have a big day on site so I will just leave me phone on next to me bed if one of yous can give me a call if it’s on. Cheers cunts xx. Oh and well done Kelly you are incredible
Yeahhhhh mate what’s your number.
Xox
Hey mate your super called me. Said he is gonna give you the day off. He knows its a comp day and tired of seeing you run to the dunny every five minutes. The curry from the night before not sitting well excuse has run its course and aint gonna fly anymore.