Annals of Adrenaline–Surfing Can Kill: Think surfing is just a laid back way for slackers to get a tan? Think again. When the waves get big and rough, surfing is an extreme sport: dangerous, unpredictable and sometimes lethal. At least that’s what Japanese surfer Moto Watanabe, an aspiring pro, discovered in January when he caught Oahu’s notorious Pipeline on a bad day. It’s a sad, moving story:

“The swell that Monday morning was still running at 8-12 feet as it had the day before, but the conditions had deteriorated as the swell turned more north and a weird bumpiness set in. Without a spot in the tight Pipeline pecking order, a zealous Watanabe was forced to compete tooth and nail for the undesirable scrap waves. According to East Coast ripper and self-described Pipe “scrapper” Jesse Hines, who had been chatting with Watanabe just seconds before the fateful eight-footer loomed, “the wave looked good at first, but just transformed into a monster. Even a boogie-boarder couldn’t have made that drop.” Watanabe grabbed his rail and tried to power his way backside into the left, but the wave hurled itself outward, the lip seemingly thicker than the wave was tall. He was wiped out in the lip by a bump and was driven head-first into his board in only three feet of water. Ironically, this was the first season at Pipe that he had chosen not to wear a helmet.”

Watanabe sustained severe injuries to his head and neck, slipped into a coma, and after 11 days on life support his parents made the difficult decision to pull the plug. Lesson learned:

For those who witnessed the wipeout and the aftermath like [surfers] Hines and Snyder, the accident has brought the danger of surfing Pipe back into perspective. Says Hines, “None of us had ever been that close to death before…it was sobering to be talking with this healthy young guy one minute, and to see him unconscious and foaming on the beach the next.”

“Oh Man, why did I ever give up tiddleywinks………”