Photo: Devon Live//Twitter
On March 3, Welsh surfer Nathan Phillips endured a pretty nasty broken leg while surfing. Local friends quickly rallied together to launch a crowdfunding campaign to help with medical costs and to alleviate the burden of missing work with a newborn child due in less than two months. But it turns out the crowdfunding page sharing that unfortunate news kind of buried the headline when it comes to wild stories that can, and do, go viral. Nathan’s broken leg is part of a that-can’t-be-real bender that actually involved a seal, getting barreled, the previously mentioned broken leg, a helicopter, and some double shakas to finish it off.
First off, the waves were legitimately pumping in Porthleven, Cornwall and a fair amount of people were sharing the lineup with Phillips on Friday, according to images shared with itvNews. The Final Destination sequence was then kicked off when a seal started tugging on his leash. And like most of us, a million things probably went through his mind when he felt that tug. Several UK media outlets painted a picture that the whole ordeal went from a seal attack straight into a leg folded in two parts but really, the jolt from the curious seal just sent him into fight or flight mode, assuming he was dealing with another animal entirely. Startled, Phillips scrambled into a wave and straight into a barrel.
“I took off on a wave, I was in the barrel and then next thing I know, I hear a big crack and I was underwater,” he told itvNews “I could feel my foot flopping round and I just felt like it was going to fall off.”
He told another outlet, “I remembered my mate saying he thought my board had snapped because of the sound, but then I realized it had been my shin when I felt my foot hitting the back of my leg. I just started screaming with pain, and my mate dragged me onto his board and told me to start paddling back to shore.” Apparently, his board had collided with his leg, causing the severe fracture.
After being helped to shore, Phillips and his broken leg reportedly waited 40 minutes before the proper medical personnel could arrive. First came a helicopter. But at 6’2″, he was too big to be flown away to the hospital. He instead had to wait for an ambulance that would eventually get him to Royal Cornwall Hospital in Treliske.
“I was blown away by the kindness of people,” he said of the fundraising response since the whole ordeal. “I’ve got a baby due in five weeks as well, so my girlfriend’s not very happy that I’ve done this, obviously.”
Get well, Nathan. We all hope your recovery is smooth and you get to enjoy some quality time with your newborn in the meantime.
