Mr. Kemper at Jaws. Photo: WSL//Hallman
Billy Kemper has escaped some close calls in his career. From the outside looking in, the first that comes to a lot of minds was a 2020 wipeout in Morocco that turned into a life-saving mission. Kemper’s pelvis was destroyed in the spill, knee ligaments were torn, and a lung collapsed, to name a few of the headline injuries he suffered in one fateful fall. So yeah, Billy Kemper has a sense of what a serious wipeout looks and feels like. And he knows from experience this most recent one could have been a lot worse, but nobody’s gonna argue the footage could have been more gruesome.
Before reading any further, take the obligatory “this is not for the squeamish” warning.
“I took a bad fall and the nose of my surf board stabbed me through my hamstring and hitting my femur so hard that my first thought was, ‘I broke my leg,'” he said along with a video of the wound being treated.
The leg wasn’t broken, thankfully, but he did end up with a gnarly hole in it. One big enough and deep enough that it could have been mistaken for a bullet wound. Kemper says he was rushed to the hospital in Mexico where the wound was stitched up, then he pointed it for California where he could get an MRI and doctors could ensure there was no ligament or tendon damage.
“Honestly, this was so close to being much worse and I am beyond grateful that I’m walking away from this one.”
You can say that again.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your perspective, the footage that Billy shared was so gnarly, Meta wouldn’t let us embed it for you. So you’ll have to click here to see it. Again, fair warning.
