Someone s Drowning in the Lineup…What Do You Do? surfline.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from surfline.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Dangers of Surfing Big Waves and Brain Injuries
How often are surfers getting concussed.or worse?
Tom Dosland. Photo: Fred Pompermayer
Dashel Pierson
Link copied to clipboard
At a remote surf spot in northern California, Shawn Dollar was in trouble. It was 2015 and Dollar was surfing alone. When a large set steamrolled his way, he stood on his board for a few feet of extra leverage, and dove beneath the whitewash. But, as he broke the surface, he went head-first into a shallow rock.
His neck was broken; his brain, scrambled.
“The real problem was, which I found out later, that all the concussions I had before added up, and this one was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Dollar, a two-time world record holder for biggest wave ever surfed (one at Maverick’s, another at Cortes Bank). “When I went up to the Amen Clinic, the results from the scans looked like I had played high school, college, and pro football. I had the brain of a pro football playe