Dane Reynolds got really, really worked at Backdoor. Worked so badly, in fact, that he cracked a vertebra and bruised his tailbone.
“Either you get blown out and you feel so rad and proud and stoked, or you get an elevator drop to the reef and bruise your tailbone and crack a vertebrae,” he wrote on Instagram. “Such a fine line that defines your future when you take a wave at pipe! I got absolutely dominated last week.”
But what a wave to get dominated on! Thick as a slab of concrete, and probably about as heavy. Spit like an angry dragon! It’s part and parcel of becoming a world class surfer, though–not that that makes it any less painful. But the fact is that surfing at a very high level (or sometimes a low level, even) can be a dangerous business. Especially at Pipeline… just ask Bede, Owen, Evan, or the countless others who’ve sustained life-threatening injuries there over the past few years.
Most likely, Dane’s injury is a compression fracture. When you land on something very hard (like a reef), that sudden force collapses the vertebrae. It can be bad, too… if the force is hard enough, it can send shards of bone into the spinal canal.
Landed on your ass hard enough to bruise your tailbone? This could’ve happened.
So, despite our past little dust-up with Dane (keep my name out yo mouth, he basically said!), we’d like to extend our sincerest get well wishes. Breaking a back is no fun and bruised tailbones make even taking a dump difficult.
