Albee Layer Hospitalised At Jaws

After The Eddie didn’t got yesterday, rather than kicking their heels, the worlds best big wave surfers decided to head over to Jaws for a paddle session. They traded big drops and the odd big pit (check out Dorians at 2.50) and it was all going swimmingly until Albee Layer took a nasty spill, sending him to the hospital. You can see the wipeout in question at the 5.23 mark below.

Here’s what Albee told Stab mag about the incident:

“When I hit I almost blacked out. My shoulders and neck shot back. It felt like I folded in half. Immediately both my arms went completely numb. That was super scary, I was thinking; oh shit, I don’t have any floatation on and I don’t know how I’m going to pull my vest. I went over, I could move my right arm a little bit and my left was dead. I grabbed my pull, but couldn’t pull it because I had no strength. I just gripped it with my fingers and waited for the wave to drag me away. When I was finally able to pull it, I relaxed and got pounded. Out of nowhere it felt like I went down another whole wave. While underwater I started getting some feeling back in my arms. I couldn’t swim at all because I was too shook. It felt like something was wrong but I didn’t know what.”

“I pulled my second canister, I needed to hit the surface and didn’t want to be under for two waves. I popped up and luckily Kurtis (Chong Lee) was right there. I was barely able to pull myself up onto the sled. I wasn’t too out of breath, but my body wasn’t really working at all. That was the scariest part.”

“I sat in the channel for a while, it didn’t seem like anything was broken. My left arm wasn’t working and my neck started feeling worse and worse. I went out on the rocks. My parents were over there, my dad’s a paramedic and my mom’s an ER nurse. I always like to have them check me out before going to the hospital because hospitals suck. I was gagging a bit and throwing up. I thought I might have a concussion. We did a couple tests when I got up the cliff. I had tingling in my fingers, so we figured it’d be best to get checked out. I went to the hospital and got some MRI’s and Cat-scans, everything checked out, no cracked vertebras or anything. I basically just bruised my whole spine, I’m really lucky.”

“They released me last night, I got to wear a neck brace for a few days but I’ll be fine. I should be good in three weeks or so. For as bad as it was I don’t think there will be any long lasting side effects.”

We wish Albee a speedy recovery and look forward to seeing him charging again soon.