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For as young as he is, Leo Fioravanti has had more than his fair share of injuries. Yesterday during a free surf at The Box, he got another one: a dislocated shoulder that took him out of the Margaret River Pro.

The injury looks to be to the same shoulder that he dislocated back in March in the quarterfinals of the Burton Automotive Pro. “Unfortunately this morning I dislocated my shoulder again at The Box,” he said on Instagram. “I’m actually doing okay. It’ll be a long recovery. I really don’t know what the next part of the recovery is, but we’ll figure it out. The good thing is that I’m all good—sort of.”

As we said, Fioravanti is no stranger to injury. In perhaps his most serious one, he broke two vertebrae in his back and tore several ligaments during a horrific wipeout at the 2015 Volcom Pipe Pro. “I was in the heat and this pretty good one came,” he explained to Mimi LaMontagne of Surfing Life at the time, “and I realized that I was right on the peak, but I took off anyway, really late, and kind of airdropped into it. My fins didn’t catch the water and I flew back over and I landed straight onto my back on the reef. As soon as it happened I knew it was bad, and I took my leash off straight away, flagged the Jet Ski down and within five minutes I was on a board getting carried up the beach.”

It was a close call, according to his doctors. “Oh, the pain was something I’ve never even come close to,” Leo went on. “The doctors said I got really lucky, that I hit the rock a bit lower on my spine. They said that if I had hit the rock a bit higher on my back it would have hit the spinal cord and I could have been paralyzed… I literally couldn’t breathe for 10 seconds, and then every time I took a breathe it was excruciating pain.”

Although time will tell, Fioravanti has a proven track record of coming back from injuries quickly and stronger. We’re wishing him a speedy recovery.

 
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