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Australian surfer great Owen Wright, considered 10 years ago perhaps the best surfer Australia has ever produced, has spoken of the incredible trauma he suffered the day the ocean turned against him.
Wright, in 2015, was in Hawaii preparing for Pipeline and if he was successful there he would be crowned world champion.
That week the waves were huge and the sea was angry.
It was in December, seven years before he won a bronze medal at the Olympics.
Australian surfing legend Owen Wright (pictured with a Rip Curl board) won an Olympic bronze medal six years after suffering life-threatening head trauma in Hawaii
Owen Wright today (pictured) retired from professional surfing this year, but in his recently published autobiography, Against The Water, he details how the ocean nearly killed him
In 2015, he was at the peak of his abilities and, in his own words, “felt invincible in the surf as well.”
Maybe that’s why the ocean turned against him that day.
In his book, against waterhis autobiography, Wright remembers that December morning vividly because it was the day that changed his life.
He had paddled through those massive 15-foot waves being cautious, but feeling skilled enough to handle them.
Then we turned on him.
The following is an excerpt from his book as printed in the australian weekend.
“Coming out, this colossal set arrived.
“As the first wave threatened to crash right in front of me, I had nowhere to go.
It’s a monstrous eight foot wave in Hawaii and a lone surfer is getting out of it. The wave that sank Owen Wright was 15 feet high
“Everyone was scooping their boards – swimming to the depths to get as far away from impact as possible. Of course, when you do that, you get a tea bag: your board stays on the surface and sticks to it, with the force of the wave rolling down your leg rope and almost pulling your leg out of its support. .
“But it’s better than a direct hit.
“The alternative to bailing out is to duck dive while still on your board, in which case you won’t be more than half a meter underwater. It was the dumb option I chose – perhaps out of complacency, a momentary illusion of invincibility.
“My punishment was seeing that 15ft second reef Pipe wave land on top of me.
“How to describe the impact? I have trouble doing it.
“I have never experienced a building collapse and I realize that would kill you to death. Still, it’s hard for me to imagine how much heavier the building might feel than that wave.
“I was still in the impact zone. What struck me was only the first wave of a series of 10 waves. One after another, coming about 20 seconds apart, these avalanches of water crashed down on me.
Kita Wright with her eldest son and that of her husband Owen, who nearly lost his father in 2015
“Without thinking, I stayed on my board throughout the assault.
“It drove me insane. Apparently when I surfaced I was conscious but white as a sheet. Without expression. A ghost.’
Wright remembers coming home that morning and not feeling well, so he lay down and slept for a few hours.
When he woke up, most of his body, including his speech, was not functioning.
Friends heard him make a muffled sound and came to see what was wrong. When they saw him, they immediately called an ambulance.
“The paramedics carried me out of the house on a stretcher to an ambulance. As I did, I looked my friends and my sister in the eye and saw the fear. I started having seizures. T
“Then, I was told, my eyes rolled back and I fainted.
“I woke up in the emergency room of a small hospital. Alongside Tyler (my sister) was my brother Mikey, who was free surfing nearby on the North Shore. Tyler had called him.
“We’ve stabilized you,” the doctor said, “but we need to get you scanned. Try to calm down.’
Shortly after, I was taken for a CT scan and then taken back to the ER.
“Your scans tell us you have a brain hemorrhage,” one said.
“There is also swelling.” The two doctors were looking at me strangely, like I was a confusing case or something.
“You’d better be transferred to a bigger hospital immediately,” said the other. So I took another ambulance ride to this larger hospital.
“In my new hospital bed, if I wasn’t fuzzy or moody, I was aggressive. “Get me out of here,” I would growl at anyone within earshot.
“After two days, I could move, but not well.
“I’d get out of bed, shuffle around and say, ‘See? I’m doing well.
Owen Wright is now helping kids learn to surf with Surfaid
“But these were incredibly unimpressive displays of mobility. I was delusional; it took me several days to let go of the idea of going back to Pipe and surfing for the title.
“The doctors didn’t want to take me out. I was in a precarious state, they said.
“Bleeding and swelling in the brain: These are not conditions to be taken lightly,” they said.
“Consistent with the observable physical damage to the brain, what I had suffered was more than a concussion; it is called traumatic brain injury (TBI).
“The difference between a concussion and a head injury, the doctors explain, is in its severity and the presence of certain additional symptoms such as slurred speech, confusion and seizures, all of which I had experienced. »
“They put me on medication, including blood thinners and anticonvulsants.”
While in hospital trying to figure out the severity of his injuries, he was told it would take him five or even ten years to get back to what he once was.
“Five to ten years? Stop, I thought. I’m already fine.
“But that doctor was just warming up.
“Your brain is like that of an explosion victim,” he says.
“You’re not just bleeding. You have multiple scar spots – scars and brain changes in four or five different areas. I would liken the damage to what we see in victims of explosions in war zones or in infants with shaken baby syndrome.
The rehabilitation that followed for Wright was long and arduous. at his side during his first hospitalization was Kita, his girlfriend whom he married four years after the accident.
They now have two eyelets.
Owen Wright’s autobiography Against The Water was published in August and he (with long blond hair) gives actor Chris Hemsworth a signed copy before he goes surfing.
Famous actor Chris Hemsworth, who plays Thor, often surfs with his great friend Wright in Byron
After recovering from that horrific time in his life that caused major brain damage to win Olympic bronze in 2021, Wright announced his retirement from competitive surfing this year, saying he no longer wanted to risk his health.
The 33 year old The bronze medal capped an inspiring comeback after that shattering obliteration at the Hawaii Pipeline in 2015 left him near death.
Recently he was seen surfing with famous Aussie Hemsworth brothers Chris and Liam in Byron Bay.
Wright’s sister, Tyler, is one of the best surfers on the planet and she’s a star of the Women’s World Tour.
“After my brain injury in 2015, my desire to prove to myself and the world that I could still be great and overcome this life-threatening incident inspired my recovery,” Wright said.
“Today, eight years later, after the challenges and the accomplishments, I can look back with happiness, knowing that I achieved this goal.