A surfer rides a wave at Yamba’s Turners Beach in NSW. (The identity of the man who tragically perished has not been released). Photo: Trevor Skinner / The Daily Examiner
Ouch. This is the worst and most dismal outcome for anyone who has ever been hit by their surfboard. (Read: every surfer ever).
On Wednesday afternoon, an Australian man was found face-down in the water at New South Wales’ Turners Beach in the town of Yamba. The 54-year-old man was riding one-to-two foot waves when a group of other surfers found him bobbing in the surf.
“He was surfing on his own within 20 metres of three other surfers and at some stage he caught a wave and fell off his board and the board hit him in the bridge of the nose,” Clarence Valley lifeguard supervisor Greg Wyllie told The Northern Star.
It’s hard to imagine an injury from one to two foot waves being powerful enough to kill a man. But then again, the ocean and its immense power should never be questioned.
The three other surfers were effective in getting the man, weighing 190 lbs, to shore in two minutes, where the lifeguard and a medically trained couple performed CPR. Within 10 to 12 minutes, the paramedics had arrived and took the man to unconscious man to the hospital.
It was there that he was pronounced dead.
